"You have to pass three tests before the full moon shines in the sky. We have to make sure that your spirit is intact and not become mortal." Pan's Labyrinth.

I discover the tree swing above Winsor Creek. The smooth wooden disc knotted onto the long rope suspended from the branch of a breathlessly tall Ponderosa pine is an artifact from another time.

And place.

I search down the grassy slope towards the kids and their house guest. They're in the midst of something like Round 10 of the boat races down the swirling waters of the frigid creek, over which I have officiated approximately five. The water craft being rotted pieces of pine they've bashed against river rock into the desired streamlined shape. The boats have names like Speeder and Silver Racer. Their sails are aspen leaves.

I am tempted to call down to them. To tell them about my find. But something makes me hesitate. A momentary selfishness, I guess. Having this wonder all to myself. I clasp the rope in both hands, struggle up onto the disc, and push off with both feet. Momentarily suspended over the wild raspberry bushes and horse grass. The thunder pounds its chest in the distance. I swing back and forth, heart pounding nearly as loudly, from the embrace of the mountainside out over the cool valley. I clasp the rope with both hands and get dizzy with spinning, pushing against the lemon-smelling bark of the god knows how ancient tree. Suspended for a moment in time.

I think about a tire swing in Missouri when I was in gradeschool. About a burlap bag fill with sand and suspended from an oak tree. In a checkered dress one afternon after Sunday School, I clung to scratchy burlap for dear life while the other kids pushed. A rope with an old board dangling from a beam in our barn in Ohio. The red one with a real cupola and a wind vane. The stone floor delicousy solid and cool against our bare feet. Swallows darted down from the hay lofts on either side. The plywood contraption my neighbors built when we were in the sixth grade. Today, it would no doubt be hailed as a death trap. Helmets and body armor would be involved, if the do-gooders didn't chop it down first. I sure as hell wouldn't let my kids play on such a thing.

But then I am calling to them and their friend up the mountainside. Yelling until the surprise echoes in the cold mist that's such a relief from the heat wave far below at the 7,000 feet above sea level where we live. And here they come. Because what I have to say is apparently contagious.

We spend all afternoon swinging.

Until it is absolutely imperative that we return back to the low country.