The Quilt Inn Country Cookbook

Aliske Webb

Swing Time

On warm lazy afternoons I like to take a cool drink and lie in the hammock. It’s

located in the middle of the front lawn, so it’s far enough away from the porch that no

one can easily talk to you anddisturb your reveries yet close enough to be summoned

if necessary. Michael has learned that it requires a three alarm fire to warrant calling

me out of the hammock. It’s a place I need to go when I'm mad at him for some reason

or other. As Goethe said, “In a good marriage we become the guardians of each

other’s solitude.”

The hammock came to live with us from Mexico. It used to be gaudy Fiesta-

colored, but it’s toned down somewhat and mellowed a lot since and I believe it’s trying

to approach a respectable earth-toned appearance in order to fit into our decor. It’s

slung between two huge century trees, Centurion trees. One willow. The other, oak.

When the trees were originally and symbolically planted in the farmyard they

were appealingly close together. Now that they are monster trees they are far too close

together and make an odd coupling. The bent over willow symbolizes flexibility and

change, with its long, slender, supple leaves that swish softly in the wind, it stands

beside the starchy, upright oak with its broad stiff leaves that rustle crisply and irritably,

and symbolizes strength and stability. These are trees that speak two different leaf

languages. Yet like yin and yang, they are opposites that complement and complete

each other into a wholeness.

Their branches intertwine bizarrely. The willow seems to flow into the oak’s stiff

embrace, like an oddly coupled marriage. An artificially arranged marriage at that. Yet

here they are, generations later, still standing side by side, rooted and symbiotic.

They’ve grown around each other, accommodated each other. Given each other space

to grow. If one were to be cut down now, there would be spaces among the remaining

one’s branches, like an empty embrace. Yes, just like a marriage.

And here I lie swinging between the two trees. Sometimes I am a willow.

Sometimes I am oak.

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Country Cooking