Multitide Mondays: The Secret of the Hammock and Other Lessons Learned During my Blog Break
The first wedding gift we opened after returning from our island honeymoon was wrapped in a package the size of a simple shoe box.
I’d shaken it carefully, my eyes fixed on my handsome twenty-year-old husband, and we’d guessed what it might be.
Hand towels monogrammed with a fancy B? Another set of country pink and dusty blue place mats? A casserole dish? A photo frame?
The possibilities were endless, so finally I’d just ripped off the glittery paper and lifted the box’s lid.
There, under a wad of crunchy white tissue paper, We’d spotted a bright splash of color.
This was no casserole dish. It was a rainbow threaded hammock built for two, a quiet picture of the life my sister was dreaming for me and my new groom.
A handcrafted card tied with a silver string dangled from those colorful ropes. And upon that small piece of paper my only sibling had written these words of hope: Wishing you many years of snuggling and swaying to the rhythm of love.
I’d pictured the two of us curled up in our gift for a Sunday afternoon nap.
Imagined a relaxed-me stretched out across that rope lounger as I read a book in the quiet of evening. Envisioned a someday-me swaying with a tiny baby in those rainbow folds.
That wedding gift spurred dreams of a delicious life, the kind of life you sip slowly and savor.
But the reality of our days were fast and furious. Full and fierce.
And for fourteen years, we never hung that hammock.
That rainbow wish stayed stuffed in a box while we secured our college degrees, explored the nooks and crannies of Europe, and stumbled through the blur of medical school.
Those colorful strings sat shrouded in storage-room darkness while we paced the halls with four newborns and mourned the loss of a baby that we’d meet in Heaven; while we grappled with how to love well and how to grow a family and how to keep a marriage from toppling over like a Lego tower in all of the madness.
For fourteen years that wedding gift remained in hiding.
And then one spring we moved four kids, one dog, and hundreds of boxes to a house on a hill with a yard of green and a splattering of trees.
And there, as I unpacked socks and board games, casserole dishes and serving spoons, I discovered a small shoebox with an old wedding wish inside.
I pictured curling up with my favorite book on a Sunday afternoon, imagined swaying beneath the stars with my man, envisioned wrapping my colicky baby in my arms as we rocked to the rhythm of summer.
Life just happened.
There were meals to make and faces to wash.
Errands to run and toenails to clip.
Tantrums to tame and toddlers to teach.
The hours just slipped away.
By the time our second summer in that yard of green rolled around, all that was left of our wedding gift was a jumble of frayed ropes and tangled strings. Fragmented remains of a dream deferred.
My kids had spent a year using that old hammock for anything but rest. They’d used it as a launching pad, a space shuttle, and a pirate’s ship.
They’d wrapped it and wrung it, flapped it and flung it.
They’d piled four flailing bodies into ropes built for two and had used the leverage of their combined weight to flip and fling the threaded swing until it had ripped from middle to edge and sawed through the tree trunk like an industrious beaver gnawing wood.
In my dreams, I had pictured it differently.
Our hammock had been fashioned for a slower rhythm. Kind of like us.
Imagine the dreams He had for us…
Dreams of cuddling up close with His Bride and savoring the ebb and sway of life with her. Dreams of swinging and singing. Dreams of resting and stillness. Dreams of savoring seasons of light breezes and seasons of balmy sunshine.
Because He dreamed of sharing something so much better.
Our lives began in sync with the celestial tune of eternity. And life just works best when we sway to the rhythm of Heaven’s heart.
One of my greatest regrets of life thus far is simply that I’ve spent decades out of sync.
Three and a half decades of push and shove and hurry and flurry has left me with scars like the tree in my backyard that once held our rainbow hammock.
And I am discovering that the world is a far more beautiful place when we slow down to see it.
That’s what I’ve been doing for the past few weeks while this place has sat empty.
I’ve been living at hammock-speed.
Swaying and savoring; seeing and listening.
Remembering that life is more than madness and motion.
And rediscovering that life is gift and grace and glory all wrapped up in the rainbow strings of a thousand ordinary moments.
I had laughed and told my little girl that the only thing the hammock should catch was a slight breeze or a ray of sun.
And if I’d known then what I know now, I would have wrapped my little girl in those rainbow ropes and taught her that when we slow to hammock speed we can we see the beauty in the blur.
I would have tucked her soft blonde head into that hammock bed and reminded her that rest isn’t just measured in the hours that we sleep, but in the tempo of our soul.
Thanking Him for these
hammock moments…
1330. The thrill of expectation.. God is doing something new!
1337. A rental home with a hammock!
Linking again in community with Ann and these lovely grace seekers: l.l. for on, in, and around mondays, laura for playdates with god, ruth at the better mom, and jen for soli deo gloria
Oh, these look like beautiful hammock moments. 🙂
What a thoughtful and sweet gift your sister gave you. And look what a return! Imagine the memories your children have of playing with that rainbow catcher! And this story too and a reminder to slow. Just beautiful, lady!
Beautiful. Just beautiful. So true and so full ofwisdom. Thank you for sharing a piece of your story with us. Such grace. I am visiting via Ann V’s Multitudes on Monday. I will be back of my own accord. Bless you xo
Yes, lessons I want to learn too. . . Excited to hear what God is doing in your life!
~Robin
Beautiful, my dear. I’m teary and this is just what I needed on a child-filled wednesday morning where perfectionism is looming fierce.
Thanks,
Summer
You are awesome. Your family is awesome, and I love your summer snapshot.
So, one of the first wedding gifts we ever received…(prepare, you will think I am lying).
A set of glasses from McDonalds. For real, the ones that were glass and had Ronald and crew on them. You know, like from the 70s. Ugh.
Visiting from Multitudes on Monday – this was so beautifully written. I loved reading it. Such a good analogy – how I long to spend time, close to Jesus, enjoying hammock days. Wishing you many more days to slow …
Just loved your words. Thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment at Under the Cover of Prayer. I loved your list of gifts.
I particularly liked:
1333. Mini golf without tears- a first?!
That brought back memories. Especially of one time where I actually fell down an incline on a mini-putt course – too funny.
Blessings,
Jan
Beautiful work, Alecia. It helped me regain peace today! My sons just brought back two hammocks from a Nicaragua mission trip. I will pray over their lives to be aware of the moments to savor and swing.
Slowing down to hammock speed. There is a phrase to tack up and be reminded of daily. To slow down and savor the moments is truly a gift. Thanks so much for this today!
What a wonderful wedding gift…something so different…and I love how you weaved this story together…I want the rhythm of my life to be like a hammock swing…a gentle rocking. I love the pictures…so sweet. blessings to you and thank you for your kind words at my place.
Beautiful, beautiful words. I am also discovering that the world is a far more beautiful place when we slow down to see it. Simply slow down to see all HE has given us. Lovely reminder, Alicia. Love see all the photos from your summer! 🙂
The caliber of your writing knocks my socks off. So beautiful on so many levels. Very nice work, Alicia.
Your hammock symbolism is riveting. But more than offer words to wrap around it, friend, I long to experience it.
Thanks for the re-focus. I’m off to read Nate the Great slow and expressive to my six year old. 😉
p.s. glad you’re back!
Thank you for this beautiful, realistic blog. It was nice to read. And what a beautiful pictures.