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100 day project 100 days of letters undeliverable letters undeliverables

May 4

Dear Tree Swing from our Backyard,

When my sister, our dad and I built you, it was a Sunday. I remember because my sister and I ran up to our room after church and sang “kick off your Sunday shoes!” as we flung our small dress flats into the closet. We had to change into work clothes so we could help transform the thick board and heavy rope into you, an iconic tree swing, swinging from one of the tallest pines in our pine dotted front yard.

Our front yard was a hill so when we swung on you our feet seemed to kick straight up into the sky. The rest of the yard, the street below, the chain link fence and row of trees across the street – all of them dropped away instantly and effortlessly below us.

Strangely, I don’t think we used you very often. Or maybe we did. Maybe it doesn’t matter. It was the building I remember most. Actually, nope, let me get this right – it was the anticipation of the building. It was the joy of rushing home to change out of the prison of church clothes. (Ugh! Tights!) It was the hilarity of referencing a movie we had just seen (and vaguely understood). It was the before of a Sunday afternoon, a fleeting moment: after Sunday school, church and coffee hour and before the afternoon has drifted into the shadow of SUNDAY NIGHT, the worst time in the whole week, when the dinner dishes are in need of scraping and 60 Minutes is droning from the black and white TV in the corner of the kitchen. But before Sunday afternoon is a moment bright with promise and sunshine and tree swing construction and it will be gone – or at least less dazzling – almost as soon as you acknowledge it.

Thanks for being part of that bright moment,

-e.