The Writing Mamas Daily Blog

Each day on the Writing Mamas Daily Blog, a different member will write about mothering.

If you're a mom then you've said these words, you've made these observations and you've lived these situations - 24/7.

And for that, you are a goddess.

Friday, November 09, 2007

 

Tree

When you get the perfect perch in a tree, you’re cradled.

You straddle a thick branch while the coarseness of the bark works like Velcro or the sticky backside of a postage stamp.

There, you can lean back against the upstretched limb behind you, or you can lean forward to the branch reaching sideways in front of you. If you’ve got your notebook with you, you can rest it on that side-reaching limb: nature’s desk.

From the vantage point of the tree, you can see the horizon further than you could on the ground.

But if you’re 37, you’re not really that high up.

As a kid in the Pacific Northwest, you used to climb the Douglas firs, tree sap snarling your brown braids and staining your jeans.

But this tree’s different.

It’s not a fir; it’s a gangly pine in northern California on the Pacific Ocean. You’re about six feet off the ground and you haven’t had to get into the needles yet. The thought’s occurred to you to go higher, to let the needles catch in your hair. To grab a pinecone, toss it across the lawn, let the cone sap gum up your fingers.

But you’re different.

It’s been 25 years since you were that serious tree climber along Pipeline Road, higher than the power lines. Recovering from a bone break now doesn’t sound so exciting – it wouldn’t be such fun to see what your friends would write on your cast; it wouldn’t be such fun to see how you’d manage life with two kids, a job, and a third floor apartment.

So you’ve met this tree, this old friend, halfway.

You’ve climbed up her trunk, found one of her low-reaching and welcoming branches and hoped to have another 25 years of her at this level.

You try not to think of brown braids gone gray and coiled atop your head. You try not to think of yourself in the slow rocker your grandkids might drag out to the base of the tree, so you can watch them climbing above you to the tippy top.

Instead, you close your pen cap and shut your notebook, dropping them to the grass with a ting and a thud, and lean across nature’s desk to simply take in the crash of the waves and the squawks of the fish-greedy gulls.

To watch from above is what the tree offered from the very, very start, after all.

By Anjie Reynolds

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Comments:
beautifully written, anjie.
your verbs! every one is perfect.
jessica
 
quite poetic, thank you

Marianne Lonsdale
 
Makes me want to climb a tree again! I think the second person works great for a short piece/essay like this...

Maya
 
As a you girl I used to sit up in the crook of a tree for hours and read. As a mother I watched from the 2nd floor apartment as you perched, sing-songed, or just thought you were hidden. I got to watch your son (my grandson) and his buddies climb high up the big fir tree during his 5th birthday party at the park. I love that you are looking forward to see your grandchild(ren) love the feeling of being in a tree. I liked it that you posted this on my birthday!! Such a great reminder, Anj. I love you. Mom
 
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