Is This You? Magic of the hammock

As the rushing river of summer starts to become a bubbling brook, I’ve found time to use our hammock a bit more and I must say whomever invented this backyard playpen needs to get a big ole gold toned medal to wear upon his or her chest. Maybe the medal could be shaped like a swinging hammock adorned with some blue and white ribbons to signify a summer blue sky with white fluffy clouds. Well, you get the idea. A hammock is a winner in the backyard array of outside furniture.

During summer I find time to sit crossway on my hammock and rock it with my feet down as I plan my next hurried move. But at this time of the year I finally have a few extra blinks of an eye to actually put my feet up and lie in my design of knotted rope hanging from a couple of hooks on a frame. There really is no other feeling one can get by hanging in the air, just a swingin’.

The Navy has it right. Putting sailors in hammocks on submarines is a masterpiece of planning. There’s a Zen-like feeling you can only accomplish by lying in a hammock. I’m not sure about you, but as for me if I found myself under two or three hundred feet of water chasing an unseen enemy (or worse yet, trying to outrun an unseen enemy), I would certainly need as many Zen moments as I could grab.

I believe a good sturdy hammock would make the best bed. My other half and I have gone from one bed to another trying to find one we both can sleep in. We thought about bringing the hammock in to use it as a bed as we both found sleeping wrapped in its airy goodness is about the best sleeping we’ve found. But I think if you take the outside experience away from the hammock it would lose half of its magic.

Magic. That’s a great description of the feeling you can get by lying in a hammock on a summer day. Where else can you let the air flow over and under you as you slip off into a light nap with the sounds and smells of your yard? However (yes, there’s always a however) ...

We have kittens bounding about our property. Several kittens and momma cats. The momma cats have found off the grass there’s a whole big world to choose a place to dig and bury poo. The kittens, however, haven’t discovered that world and have come to find the grass is soft and close to the feed dish and water supply and that’s where they’ve begun to start learning to poo. They haven’t yet learned the art of the bury part. So ...

As I’m hanging there in a great pose of summer splendor over the grass, there comes a wafting of kitten poo. Holy cats and kittens, Batman! Why, oh why, does every wonderful thing have to have a down side?

If you get a brand new car, you get that new car smell, you get that giddy feeling of having a new car. You’re feeling all warm and fuzzy, then you get this big envelope in the mail that contains a big payment book. A down side.

You go to the grocery store and find a sale on kumquats. (Whatever a kumquat is). You buy extra because you really enjoy a good kumquat. You get home and as you’re going through your mail you see another store has advertised kumquats on sale for like half of what you paid for your kumquats. Another down side.

You have to work at keeping your head above the downside. After all, you get to drive that new car each and every day. Sniffing that new car smell until it becomes your smell in that new car. Well, that didn’t come out right, but you get it, right? On the other side, you only have to deal with that big old payment book just once a month!

Yes, I’m a glass half full kind of gal. Actually, I’m a glass full kind of gal. If the glass is only half full of water, the other half is full of air. I need both halves to exist, don’t you?

Trina lives in Eureka, Nevada. Share with her at itybytrina@yahoo.com. Really!