I don’t like heights. Not particularly fond of the idea of jumping out of a plane to go sky diving, although i always say i want to before I die. As a kid, and a proper kid –like under the age of 16– I fell in love with climbing trees. I don’t know why i never felt nervous up there, 2 or 3 stories high maybe. I’d back up from the edge of The Grand Canyon one year after i climbed my tree for the last time, but never did i think about venturing into the coffee filter of adrenaline and serenity of the top tree branches. I didn’t wanna jump or fly, I wanted to be right where I was. Tasting the hard cold that would soon be chased by below freezing temperatures and snow.
We, the tree and me, bent with the wind, moving in living conversation or simply simple co-existence. Thankful to whoever or whatever sent the rushes of spiraling refrigerator wind against and the around my fingertips. Styling my hair differently, naturally. I haven’t changed my feelings towards the trees or the wind, I’ve simply been divorced from my home tree. School, moving, age, laziness, work, all have strained my relations with it. But we still talk sometimes. I never let too many trees breeze past me without reaching out and touching, or let too many winds wind around the forests without having my lungs and blood and brain be a blissfully short detour.
This brought back a very distinct memory of playing at my friend’s house and her enormous pine trees. Looking back, I realize that I had very distinct games that I would play depending on who’s house I was visiting. With my friend Kate, we always played pioneer girls (she lived out in the country with a large barn). With Miyo, we were either on a scouting mission for fairies (often pretending we could see them), or we were warrior princesses. And almost every time that I came to her house, we climbed the white pines in her yard. They seemed enormous to our nine year old eyes, rising almost indefinitely, each branch creating almost a perfect ladder (it also helped being a small agile child). She would stay within the bottom third of the tree, but would encourage me to climb further. Even now I remember that experience, the smell of the needles and the sap that would inevitably stick to my hands. I guess I wasn’t scared of heights back then.