I have done this many time before, but I am here at my computer when I happened to think of it. Sometimes when I close my eyes in the daytime, I think that I could be anywhere, that my location is determined in my mind by what my eyes see. If I am not pleased with my view or setting and I close my eyes, I mostly generally will remain in my mind where I actually am. But, if I close my eyes and thing of other places and other times, I can experience part of that place of time. And there are things that surprise me.

Today, I just leaned over on my sofa and pulled my legs up and rested. I thought of the porch at my grandparents’ house in Kingman, Indiana and lying in that position on the swing. Of course, I lay very still because the motion of the swing would make me sick, as did riding in a car.

I was thinking of just the summer afternoon in Kingman when all at once it occurred to me that my body didn’t feel right on my remembered swing. I had imported the place but I was bigger. Not so much grown up as I would still lay on the swing when I was 18, but BIGGER in the hips and everywhere. And what was this pull on my jaw? Could it be sagging facial muscles and skin?

But I put that out of my mind, and saw things as they were then – the bushes, the screen door, the steps, the space in the porch walls where water could drain. And, then I got up and went out and raked some leaves – that girl on that swing would have been appalled at the weight I have put on her frame.