Tire in a Tree

"That was fast," I said as Mom moved across the concrete toward where I stood holding the ladder as Dad balanced on the top step.

"It was yesterday," she said of the graduation party she'd left to attend. "I must have read the invitation wrong. She's going to go to local college and major in elementary education," Mom reported as we looked up at Dad securing a section of rope over a branch of the pine tree.

"Is she going to live at home? Don't worry - he's fine. This is the last rope," I assured her as she continued to frown up at Dad.

Mom nodded and moved across from me to hold the other side of the ladder. "She says she wants to teach at the grade school she attended. Live close to her parents after she graduates. She's not going to live in the dorms so maybe she'll never leave." I shrugged and said she was 18 - she'd figure out a path that worked for her. I was, I decided, in no position to judge the daughter of Mom's colleague as Dad's sneakers balanced some six feet off the ground trying to recreate a piece of my childhood for Little One.

"She loves to swing," Mom said this morning as we chatted over coffee on the back patio. We cuddled together on the wrought iron loveseat as it rocked gently back and forth. "I should get her a little swing to put over one of those limbs."

"Good place for a tire swing," I commented, sipping from the mug that held the logo of Dad's former employer. I raised my eyebrows when she looked confused. "I had a tire swing at the old house. In the tree by SideStreet." When she continued to squint at me quizzically, I got offended. "On the other side of the garage. In the tree. I used to play there all the time! How can you not remember?" I gave her a moment to shake her head at me before yelling inside for my father.

"Do you remember my tire swing?" I asked him as he opened the screen door and stepped outside, settling himself in a chair and balancing his cup of coffee on his knee. He nodded immediately and I looked smugly at my mother. She shrugged.

"It was in that tree I fell out of," he told her.

"Oh," she said, nodding while it was my turn to look surprised.

"You almost fell out of my tree? Was it while you were putting up my tire swing?"

"No," he said, looking thoughtful. "I was trimming some limbs and I lost my balance when I was starting the chainsaw."

"You threw it so you wouldn't fall on it," Mom remembered and Dad nodded.

"I knew I was going to fall, so I threw the chainsaw as far as I could and then fell down."

"So you didn't get hurt?" I asked, trying to remember and wondering if I was born yet at the time of this event.

"I almost broke my neck! But I didn't get cut," he concluded, taking his turn at being smug.

"Huh," I said, taking another sip of coffee. "I don't remember that, but I did love that tire swing."

"Was it flat or hanging on end?" Mom asked and I glared at her for her continued lapses memory.

"It was flat," Dad and I said together.

"We should build one for Little One!" Mom decided and I nodded slowly in agreement while Dad, knowing the project would be assigned to him, frowned and sighed. "We have all kinds of tires," Mom defended her request. "All we need is rope and those bolts and some nuts." Dad finally nodded, already gazing into the yard to evaluate limbs.

We returned from running errands this afternoon and Mom flitted off to the party she thought was today. Dad and I walked out back with Chienne and stared up into the pair of pines that reside inside the small portion of fenced yard directly behind the house. We quickly decided on a sturdy limb not too far off the ground and set off for the garages out back to select a suitable tire.

"That's too thick," I decided of one he picked up to stand on end. "Try that pile on the left."

"The rims are still in them," he replied with a shake of his head. So we both continued to glance around behind the garages at the 10 or so tires that were piled in various areas. "I think I have more in the shed," he decided and I followed behind him while shaking my head over the fact that I couldn't even estimate how many old tires we had.

"That's perfect," I decided while he told me it was the original tire from his mother's car. She died when I was very small. Which makes this tire rather old. But I began to roll it toward the fence, tugging Chienne along beside me as she explored the yard. I gathered the materials we bought earlier while Dad carried a huge, old drill from the garage. He handed me a yard stick while he drilled the first hole through both sides of the tire as it sat flat on the ground. I knelt when he was done and measured to make sure the three holes would be equally spaced. We decided on 18.5 inches between them and I watched while he drilled.

He preened when he realized he'd chosen the perfect length hardware for attaching the ropes to the tire. I handed him washers and helped screw on the nuts. He showed me how to change the drill bit for a sander and I carefully smoothed the inside edges so they wouldn't scrape Little One's legs. We both took a moment to smile at the hardware-decorated tire before moving it across the patio to the tree we selected.

He climbed up the ladder the first time and I could hear him muttering to himself as he looped the rope into a knot. Back on the ground next to me, he tugged at it until it slipped to grasp the branch tightly.

"Good job," I praised.

"It wasn't supposed to slip," he told me and I glanced up at it in time to see it slide free and drop to the ground.

"Try again!" I smiled as I said it and he sighed before climbing the ladder again. I watched him attempt the knot a second time before wrapping the rope around his waist - he told me that's how he learned to tie the knot in Boy Scouts - and memorized how the rope looped and crossed before tossing the end over the branch again and knotting it correctly. I watched when, back on the ground, he slipped the rope through the silver hole and knotted it again. Mom arrived to assist with the final one.

"So what do you do for fun when you're home?" I asked myself. Then I answered. "Oh, I stand around in a tiny circle with my parents to protect the fire while we singe the ends of nylon rope. It's really very cool." Mom giggled with me as we stood shoulder to shoulder with Dad around a tiny flame from the lighter as Dad heated the ends of the rope and pushed the threads together so it wouldn't fray.

"Oh," I breathed when we finished and stepped back to view our completed project. "It's just perfect." I held my breath when Dad sat gingerly on the tire, watching the knots and the branch for any signs of imminent slipping or snapping. It held steady as he swung back and forth a couple times before getting up.

"Get in," he told me. "It's fun."

"Oh, I can't. I'm too heavy. And old. It's for Little One."

"It'll hold you," Dad scolded. "Just try it." So I moved slowly toward the tire before turning away. I gripped two of the ropes as I sat down into the swing. I felt a little silly until my feet left the ground and the tire swung gently forward.

And then it was just perfect. The texture of the rope on my palms and fingertips, the smell of old tire and slight grittiness that remained. The smooth glide through the air while sheltered under a bough filled with needles and cones. I giggled as I rocked back and forth while Dad smiled at me before moving to put tools away and Mom called Little One to tell her of the new toy she'd see when she next visited.

I dipped my toes to touch the ground and nudged the tire into rotation, staring up into the tree as the carefully-knotted ropes wrapped around each other in a tight twist. There was a moment of stillness when I caught my breath with anticipation, remembering the exact same feeling when a tire seemed gigantic compared to my tiny body. The reverse rotation started slowly but picked up speed, turning the familiar world behind my parents' house into a blur of greens and browns, houses and garages and trees and yards. I giggled again, stretching my legs out in front of me to enjoy the spinning and blinked dizzily when the tire slowly - after going clockwise and counter, clockwise and counter - stopped twirling around.

There's something about the familiar that's appealing. Seeking places where you feel loved and safe and knowledgeable about shortcuts and shops, where you know people and backgrounds, seems natural. There are adventures away from home, of course, and I can't say I'm sorry I've sought some of them, even though my parents had to threaten me out of the car when moving into my freshman dorm. When I wept bitterly after they left me in grad school, then again in my post-doctoral city. I still pout when I return to a house filled with toys and tiny girls and parents who are more interested in filling sippy cups than hearing my stories. The fact that change in inevitable seems sad sometimes.

It's those moments - perhaps when one is twirling on the tire swing and breathless with laughter - when the familiar love and happiness seem within easy reach. Since I've been aching over the thought of leaving Friend for a new city or Sprout for here several weeks while I deal with the transition of moving or selling the house I love or having to meet everyone I see in the hall rather than just saying hello to those I've known for three years? It's somehow perfectly comforting that long-lost moments can be recreated, at least in some sense, when my feet left the ground to float through the air, and in the thought of Little One giggling and twirling her way to her own memories.