As My Daughter And I Swung On The Swings, I Learnt The Importance Of Living In The Moment!

That day, watching my daughter I felt a strong urge to relive the moments that I had felt in my childhood. So I sat on the swing next to her. 

I spent one whole morning playing in the park with my three-year-old daughter. That day I realised that exhilaration is an emotion that adults are still capable of experiencing effortlessly. Trips to the park are something I do like an important chore.

I mostly plug in my head-phones and sit down in a nearby bench. Some times taking turns to push the swing, soothe a fall, or wave while she smiles at me from the slide. It was all very mechanical. Something I did because I had to.

I took my usual position on the bench and watched as my child cried in ecstasy while coming down the slide. She laughed without a care as she went high up on a swing and imagined herself a warrior as she rode on the horse.

The swing had always been my favourite, I’m sure it’s the same for everyone. I, generally, can never resist getting on one and lose myself in the swaying motions, as a child, as the breeze caressed my being.

The breeze often brought with it either the crispiness of a winter, the freshness of a spring.  It brings with it the sweet flowery smell of summer and the earthy smell of a glorious autumn.

It was the tingly sensation I missed

As a child, I often looked up at the sky, my eyes wide open, lost in a magical hypnotism that nature induced as the swing went up high. The vast blue, the wispy clouds and the different colours always left me in awe.

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I remember chuckling away in pure glee as my tummy tingled with the swaying movement of the swing. Just like it tingles when you receive a good news or more simply just love.

That day, watching my daughter I felt a strong urge to relive the moments that I had felt in my childhood. So I sat on the swing next to her. Her happiness was unfounded when she saw me join her.

‘Mama!’ She shrieked in the most grateful way possible! (Oh how much we can learn about gratitude from these people, I wondered as I smiled back at her)

As we swung together matching our oscillations, I taught her to look up at the sky. The morning sky with the white clouds was picture perfect and I looked at my baby and saw the same wide eyed awe. I the way the breeze caressed her, and could not resist laughing out loud every time our tummy tingled when we looked up.

That I didn’t have my phone to capture this moment was something I was immensely grateful for. It was a moment etched in my memory and hers too and I would have it no other way.

And I learnt to live in the moment

I have often read about wise people emphasising on the importance of living in the moment. But I never understood it because I was always either trying to save the future, worrying about it. Or I stayed lost in the good old days I knew and wished it were now. Meanwhile, completely forgetting to ‘exist consciously’ in the present.

When I was younger, the sun always shone a little brighter, holidays seemed a little merrier and laughter came a little stronger. As I grew up, I often missed these feelings.

Everything seemed shadowed by something. Holidays seemed shadowed by the worry of ‘end of vacation.’ The sweet summers seemed shadowed by the ‘coming of autumn.’ And the present shadowed either by the plans and worry of future and nostalgia of the past.

That day as I looked up at the blue sky with the wispy clouds, laughing at each high oscillation, I felt the intense emotions of joy in me again. As if in a ‘eureka’ moment I understood the wisdom of the sages. And I cannot be more thankful to my little chuckling three year old guru ecstatically swinging next to me.

Picture credits: Canva.

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