The Joys We Find Swinging in a Hammock
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- by Mark Stephens on Mon Mar 7, 2011 - Add comment
Location, Location, Location: The important element in a successful hammock siesta. Chloe's enjoying the Pacific side of Baja the proper way.
The day Brooke hung a hammock from a mesquite tree in our back yard I watched her and Chloe swing in it for three or four minutes while the anchor on one end began to fray.
"Join us, Papa." Brooke said.
"No way. That rope around the tree is about to break."
She looked at it. Chloe looked at it. "Oh, come on. It's fine."
"Take your chances, girls. I'll check on you in a minute."
I went inside, poured a glass of water, and considered checking into Facebook. But then I heard Chloe crying . . . and Brooke laughing.
There on the ground lay my two girls, and from the tree branch dangled that guilty frayed rope. If it had eyes, it would have been looking square at my face. The swinging action sawed the rope against the coarse mesquite bark - earning me, once again, the award of being right.
At a whole three years old, Chloe wanted back on that horse. Though she'd sat in a hammock that failed her, she came right up to me and asked, "Papa, will you fix it?"
So one day when I picked up Chloe at noon from her preschool, I took her to the hardware store. We picked out the right parts for the job, went home, and began the work. Chloe wanted to help. Since she can't tie good knots and since she's not tall enough anyway, I fabricated something for her to do. "Sure, you can help, sweetie. I'll give you the most important job. Stand here and hold this end of the hammock for me. Don't drop it, okay?"
"Okay, I won't."
She was proud. She held on tight, and I created the new anchor around the tree. "Okay, Chloe, will you hand me that end of the hammock? I'm ready for it."
"Here you go."
"Thank you, darlin'."
"Welcome."
And I tied it up, checked the height from the ground, looked at Chloe and she looked at me.
"It's all done. It's fixed."
"We fixed it, Papa!"
"Yep."
"Okay. I want to take a nap in it. Will you go away?"
That's her three-year-old way of saying, "I don't need you anymore."
So I went to the kitchen. I heard her a moment later calling, "Will you bring me my purple blankey?"
"Will you really take a nap out here?"
"Yeah. Get my blankey."
So I did. And so did she.
* * *
I've swung my own carefree hours in a chill hammock on many a barren Mexican beach. Not once have I ever been so delusional to believe that the experience was worth more money than a small car, though. You read that right, and this is going somewhere. If you're much of a road tripper or camper, you might already agree with the awesome that is a hammock. Now, if you want to bring some of that awesome to your own back yard, I say do it.
Right about now, you'd be expecting to see a few examples of adventure worthy hammocks. Forget it. You know what a hammock looks like and you know where to buy them - why complicate a simple thing? Besides, when I went to go look up some cool hammocks, and found, believe it or not, some really nutty-crazy specimens that'll give you a chill of some kind. Take a look.
Behold, the Royal Botania Wave hammock, it'll run you $28,000
"Lovers in the Air" hammock. It's either inspired by a heart, or a tire swing:
Awesome. A hammock bean bag:
The appropriately named NestRest. Is it a hammock, or a bed?:
Probably the most economical choice at $15 U.S. if you haggle a bit, plus this type is one you can cram in a backpack. The beautiful streetside Mexican hammock:
via CasaDeQueso, Creative Commons license to share
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