{"id":4579,"date":"2016-10-30T16:57:50","date_gmt":"2016-10-30T20:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/?p=4579"},"modified":"2016-10-30T16:57:50","modified_gmt":"2016-10-30T20:57:50","slug":"lying-in-a-hammock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/2016\/10\/30\/lying-in-a-hammock\/","title":{"rendered":"Lying in a hammock"},"content":{"rendered":"

I walked along the path surrounding the lake, avoiding the geese droppings but purposefully steeping on the leaves to hear their satisfying crunch<\/em> noise. I was on a mission to find a good reflection spot. However, as I neared the area in front of Lakeview, I came across the hammocks, unoccupied, swaying in the wind and inviting me in the sit down and relax. It was time for a break anyways.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The crunchy leaves!<\/p><\/div>\n

I sit down and take in my surroundings. It was a great day\u2014sunny, 75 degrees, a little breezy but not enough to mess up your hair. I might as well reflect here<\/em>. A squirrel scurried up the loblolly pine to my right while a leaf headed straight for my face from the left. The ducks swam the lake, some with their heads above water while others were diving under with their feet breaking the surface. The geese crowd the banks, looking for any scrap of food they could find. Feathers dot the ground among the leaves, flying away with even the slightest gust of wind.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The view from my reflection spot<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>

The view from my reflection spot (pt.2)<\/p><\/div>\n

I lie down. The sides of the hammock cocoon me and form a barrier to all the tasks I should be doing but have neglected to do so. Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly with black spots, fluttering like a leaf in wind. I close my eyes. I can feel the rays of sunlight seeping through the swaying canopy of sweet gums and loblolly pines and onto my face. I hear a dog in the distance\u2014and the owner trying to calm it down. Suddenly there is the thunder of sneakers hitting the asphalt, as a group of runners breeze by, but then there\u2019s silence. Cronan\u2019s ideas of wilderness come to mind\u2014this is an escape, I am in the sublime in my own backyard<\/em>. However, my thought process is broken by the roar of a car engine coming from behind my head, reminding me that while I may only be facing the serenity of the lake, there is a whole world going on around me.<\/p>\n

\"Trees!\"<\/a>

Trees!<\/p><\/div>\n

I continue to lay there with my eyes closed. The occasional pang <\/em>of the bat hitting the ball can be heard from the baseball field while a few quacks <\/em>can be heard from the lake. However, overall, everything seemed calm and carefree from my position in the hammock.<\/p>\n

Triceragoose let out a loud yelp pulling me out of my thoughts. As I grudgingly lift myself out of the hammock\u2014my comfy piece of heaven\u2014I welcome myself back into the real world, full of lists of things to accomplish with a lack of time to actually accomplish them. The sublime is gone. However, I hope to be back in that state sometime soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I walked along the path surrounding the lake, avoiding the geese droppings but purposefully steeping on the leaves to hear their satisfying crunch noise. I was on a mission to find a good reflection spot. However, as I neared the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2957,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6246],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflection-point"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/james\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}