Just like that, it’s National Hammock Day again! Another year has swifted past, and once more we’re observing the high holy holiday of hammocking. Let us all sigh a collective sigh of pleasure as we settle into a string sanctuary slung between trees, or boathouse columns, or sailboat mast and boom, or any other suitable place. Better yet, join friends or family for hammock hangout together. It’s almost as revitalizing as solo hammocking, and together you’ve no need to explain or apologize for the indulgence. Call it a meeting, reconnecting, catching up, or maybe even a tryst!
Perhaps poetic introduction for a hammock hangout is best offered by the curiously controversial and much loved poem, cartoonist, and musician, Shel Silverstein.
Grandma sent the hammock, The good Lord sent the breeze. I'm here to do the swinging— Now, who's gonna move the trees? — Shel Silverstein, "Hammock"
Or maybe poet James Wright’s mysterious meditation is the way to jumpstart a hammock hangout? His “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota“ continues to provoke disagreement about what in the world he was trying to say. And why. It’s that last line, of course, that sends folks into a tizzy of disagreement. Dan Piepenbring‘s June 23, 2015 essay in The Paris Review, “I Have Wasted My Life“, includes an appealing-to-me tidbit from David Mitchell that originally appeared in Joe Fassler‘s September 23, 2014 essay, “David Mitchell on How to Write: ‘Neglect Everything Else’“:
You have to enter the hammock, put the world on hold, to really see things clearly the way the poem does. — David Mitchell (Source: The Atlantic)
But I’ve taken you on a wild goose chase of intertextuality instead of simply inviting you to join me for a hammock hangout. Let’s start again.
Hammocking Hangout
In honor of National Hammock Day I invite you to a virtual hammock hangout in one of the stringed sanctuaries slung around Rosslyn’s grounds.
Did you know that July 22nd is National Hammock Day? Not only this year. Every year!
As hammocking habitúes, Susan and I consider EVERY day a hammock day. Well, not every day. Let’s say April through October? (Source: National Hammock Day)
No words of wisdom. No aphoristic anecdote.
Just an observation [about hammocking]…
Perhaps it’s the perspective shift. Or the suspension. Or the gentle swinging motion. The editing. The framing. The feathery tickle of a breeze. Or a caterpillar.
[…]
Hammocking recalibrates and encourages wonder. (Source: Hammocking)
Whether suspended between the boathouse columns, swinging above Lake Champlain’s waves, or secreted into the orchard where fruit are ripening by the day, s hammock hangout is recuperative and revitalizing. Bring a book, a blanket, and an ice tea. Then settle in for a a hangout. Literally…
My meditations on hammocking make no pretense of identifying precisely why and how swaying in a hammock is medicine. More than medicine. It’s poetry. But why? And how? I’m not 100% certain. (Source: Poetry of Rocking)
Enjoy a hammock hangout, and then you might be able to answer these questions. If so, please let me know.
I look forward to hearing from you. Until then I’ll be meditating pendulously in the shade — by myself, with Susan, and with Carley — in pursuit of insight.
What do you think?