Part of a series inspired by Ross Gay
that starts here:
Are all children naturally drawn to trees? Have we been particularly designed to seek out the well suited acme, crest, crown or summit to be climbed and conquered? My hunch is that it's deeply embedded into our survival instincts: watching for threats, looking for sustenance or enjoying that territorial view. And like many things embedded into our instincts, we (as children) begin to seek ways to practice and play to explore and ready ourselves for our adult lives.
The trees, at my childhood home, that were the most climbable, were a willow tree and an oak tree. The willow tree was my favorite. It had (at least) a couple of good roosting branches, one of which was where the latest swing was hung. I spent a number of hours communing and escaping with that willow tree--both up in its branches and spinning on the swing. Whenever someone was visiting and happened to admire that tree, at the end of the visit you'd find them accepting the branchlet Dad offered, with a rubber-banded plastic bag holding a wet paper towel against the freshly cut end.
The oak tree, offered a spectacular view of the neighborhood, but that involved scaling (10? 12?) two by fours cut into foot(ish) lengths nailed onto the oak's torso. And since the nailing was done by oldest brother, each step held the possibility of a quick, but treacherous descent. The oak tree offered a more daring adventure, that was usually short-lived: climb, admire view, climb back down. Something you might save for a visiting friend, until your mum sees the two of you through a window and ends that adventure.
And now, the memory of N's and my small crew, checking out each tree, at the new house, to see what entertainment it offered, comes seeping in. The lovely, climbable, plum tree--until the ripe, fallen, plums began to attract the bees, the cherry tree, with a branch to sit, eat and spit pits, and the largest tree, that we never learned the name of, that would hum with bees in the early spring, hold the swing and shade us as we played King's Corner after snapping pounds and pounds of green beans. Thank you, trees. Thanks for all that you've added to our lives--especially that lovely air.
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