Even when it’s lovely outside, I can sometimes spend the entire day indoors, admiring the sunlight as it falls in stripes across the parquet or the flickering shine of the water in the pool on the underside of the porch roof. Especially when immersed in a good book or busy with housecleaning or projects, it’s not always my first inclination to get outside in the fresh air and sunshine. Especially nowadays when bright sunshine jabs at my eyes and makes them blurry for the rest of the day, I’m even more wary of taking the risk which might mean not being able to read during the afternoon as my eyes blur and water.
This afternoon, therefore, I consciously pushed myself out of doors. I went out in the yard and walked around. Karin was just back from a birthday party at a classmate’s home (her 2nd of 3 in a row this weekend) and Martin (who, like me, needs to be pushed outside) was playing computer games. Anders was in the garage where his motorcycle is tethered, casing-less, to the roof, while he oils and tightens and repairs things. Laundry was humming in both the washer and dryer, and the dishes were drying.
I went back inside and got my book and my sunglasses and returned to the sweet-smelling outdoors, climbing up on the trampoline. I lay on my stomach, askew across the black expanse of the gently moving mesh. The trampoline is huge: it could sleep 11 boys Martin’s age quite comfortably if we had a trampoline tent cover. I had kicked off my sandals and a very cool breeze teased the bottoms of my feet. I was wearing jeans and a lightweight shirt with sleeves down to my elbows, but I was very comfortable. I read a few pages, then set the book down and laid my head on my crossed arms, face down.
Below me, the sun sparkled on the tight weave of the nylon. Each sparkle elongated and flexed with my breathing and blinking until, squinting, it looked like a field of diamonds right beneath my nose. Re-focusing I realized that I could see quite clearly through the mesh to the ground about 3 feet below me. Grass reached up towards me, feather-topped and friendly (waving!), and I could see a small daisy and some clover blossoms and the petals from one of the honeysuckle blooms blown to rest on the lawn. I could see my darker shadow against the light shadowed circle of the trampoline.
I kept expecting the kids to discover me and come racing out to leap and bounce me about, but they never did. I closed my eyes. I could hear a distant surf of traffic from E22, miles away, with the occasional louder buzz of an approaching vehicle down Roslövsvägen. I could hear a handful of birds in the trees across the ditch, or further away, warbling their hearts out in a surprisingly harmonic chorus, given that they were all singing different tunes. A crow flew low over my supine body, cawing like a creaky rusted gate: HAW, he said, HOO, CAW. The children next door were outside, too. Whining, then playing and laughing. I lifted my head: they were on their trampoline and the little girl was looking over at me, probably wondering what the heck I was doing.
I put my head back down. I could feel the sun beating down, warming my denimmed thighs. The warmth increased but it wasn’t at all unpleasant, quite the contrary. The breeze picked up and played with my hair and I turned slightly, moving my head from one arm to the other. I lay there for quite a long time, nearly dozing, relaxed and warm and peaceful.
Then, just before I actually fell asleep, I got up and went back inside.