The Swingset in the Sandias

Countdown: 19 days to Rio, 46 days to Mozambique. And only 15 days left in Austin.

It's hard to plan a goodbye. When you start to really analyze your life and pick out the little parts of each day that are important to you, it becomes even more so. I have a strong desire to leave Austin with a sense of closure. I want to squeeze the most out of my last shared moments here with the people I love, take full advantage of the beautiful spring days, and create meaningful memories on my way out.

When I was 15 and getting ready to go for my exchange year to Brasil, I had similar impulses to do everything and see everyone I cared about before I left the country. I could sense that my life was about to drastically change, and I wanted something to make me feel grounded. I would spend hours driving around the North Valley in Albuquerque, just soaking up the adobe walls covered with periwinkles, the red chile ristras, the beautiful gardens along Candelaria and Griegos that defy the desert, the junked out cars in driveways, and the specific way the sunlight floods everything just before night falls and the evenings become cool.

The night before I left New Mexico, I drove to a hidden park near our house in the foothills of the Sandias. It was the middle of July and I could hear the cicadas buzzing around me. The park was xeriscaped to blend in with the natural surroundings - no grass or tennis courts, just colored gravel and sagebrush around the swingset and slide. I decided to swing, looking out over the city lights and the dark patch of the bosque and Rio Grande cutting through the heart of it all. I swung in silence for over an hour, just letting my mind wander, taking in the stillness and simplicity of my surroundings.

Swinging alone at night at the hidden park in the foothills became my closure ritual. I swung there before I moved to Rio in 2000 to go to business school, and again before I moved to Austin in the late summer of 2002. And now I'm getting ready to leave Austin, but don't have my swingset in the mountains...