Over a decade ago, I attended a week of training in San Francisco led by Jill Badonsky, described in different online bios as “a pioneer in creativity coaching.”  The goal was getting certified to lead creativity circles.

I always considered myself a creative type. My mother used to commiserate with my high school teachers at conferences around how this trait was accompanied by disorganization and a disregard for time.

Career counselors I saw over the years (Yes, I was often out of work or under-employed) acknowledged the characteristic by their own tests and metrics.

One of the exercises at this training was to see what I would do with six pipe cleaners in one minute.

I made a swing set. I tried to capture the whimsy of a child’s view of life and motion, moving in air.

I didn’t develop a coaching business at the time, but I did keep my swing set. It sits on my bedroom dresser along with a small dish for coins, another for buttons, and a mandala I made.

Lately, I have been looking a lot at my purposefully tangled creation of orange, yellow, pink and gold fuzz covered wires.

It’s swing time.

Even as the sun announces its presence in my bedroom just after five in the morning and doesn’t go into hiding until close to nine at night, I know that the summer solstice is fast approaching.

Every year, in the northern hemisphere, the hours in which the sun can be seen during the day expands from December 21st to the 21st of June — and shrinks, in the same proportion, as we approach the start of winter.

This date is special, almost magical, to me. It’s not a holiday in commemoration of birthday or anniversary, or a bank holiday established at a convenient time by government decree so that people can have a long weekend.

This date actually means something in the life of our planet, in our configuration within our solar system.

I’m fascinated by the idea that something so weighty and stubborn as time (the expansion of daylight hours) changes direction. It seems impossible and perfect at the same time. Isn’t that the way of most things, swinging between different positions?

I never developed a career as creativity coach. The bar for independents was high back then. I don’t think most people imagined “coaching” would be the “thing” it is today.  Yet now, there are coaches that help people in all range of pursuits, from memoir writing to organizing closets.

People used to want to work for a big company; enjoy paid holidays and tuition reimbursement programs and all.

During my twenties, when I held several positions in data comm sales, companies were always alternating between different go-to-market strategies, flip-flopping between selling direct to consumers and through dealers and distributors.

We‘ve gotten accustomed to reversals in politics. We practically assume a newly elected president’s party will lose the majority in the House at the next mid-term election. As citizens, we go between wanting limited government and wanting a stronger safety net.

Is “swinging” simply propelled by the human tendency to want the things we don’t currently have?  Are people misguided in applying most of their energies into acquiring something perceived to be lacking rather than on maintaining what is known to be of value?

So much has been said about the importance of BALANCE in achieving mental health. The pandemic has forced people to revisit commitments to family life after years of placing career goals first.

I think the idea of reaching a balance, a state of equilibrium that can be sustained, is naïve. How can we keep our lives steady when the world around us, when time itself, is moving?

Maybe the best we can do is check in with ourselves, moment by moment, and adjust.

The aim of our time on the playground of life is not to avoid skinned knees or fights with bullies or to be able to claim we spent time hanging from every available apparatus. The goal is not about making a soft landing after going airborne.

Simply swinging, and enjoying it, is no small thing.