Just Climbing a Tree

Sometimes I write down a word or a phrase in my daily planner or on a scrap of paper in order to remind me of something I want to write about. Often, I end up transcribing the note from a scrap loose in my bag into the planner, and then from one month to the next in the planner, until I finally write about whatever it is I made the original note on. A note I took years ago now has been transcribed so many times that I'm not sure I remember exactly what I had intended when I first wrote it. It says, "When will my photos look like my parents'--faded, yellowed?"

I think I wrote this note after looking at one of the albums at my parents' house from my childhood. I remember on more than one occasion thinking how old the photographs looked, older even than they actually are. And I remember wondering if--trying to imagine when--looking at photos of, say, me at a college party would look so ancient, so "of the past."

For some reason this doesn't seem as interesting to me as it once did. I was trying to get at this a little bit the other night when I wrote about turning ten and age and perspective: The older I get, the less I seem focused on aging, which is counter to everything I'd expected. It's like having a second child in a way--you just don't have time to worry about the things you used to worry about. This is a good thing, I think, for we worriers. It is always a good thing when there is more to do, less to worry about.

But this is a journal entry, not the kind of writing I am supposed to be doing, so I am going to stop myself midstream. The old fallback: A memory.

The house we lived in until I was seven was my first house, my home of origin. I remember so much about this house that I think would surprise even my parents. I remember the yard: where the hammock was, the garden in the back corner, where the grapes and peas grew, the summer there were $100,000 dollar bars in the freezer in the garage, where I was sitting on the kitchen counter when I accidentally stabbed myself in the thigh with a pair of scissors. I remember the blue and green geometric pattern on the kitchen floor, the orange bedspread in my parents' room, the wall on which my nightlight was plugged in.

And I remember the big fir tree in the back of the house, near the garage, with branches low to the ground and sturdy. And I remember climbing this tree, using all the upper body strength I had to heave myself onto the lowest branch, and then climbing up, legs and arms getting scratched by the needles, never looking down, until I reached a comfortable perch and could just sit, surveying the yard--our playhouse, the roof of the Lewis' house next door, the high fence, the dog in a hole he'd dug in the dirt. The smell of a fir tree from inside the tree is not Christmassy, as you'd expect. It's deep and cool and clean and just a little minty, and if you have never climbed a tree, not to get to a tree house or with any sense of purpose, just to sit in a crook of branches and swing your legs and think about nothing while breathing in deeply, I highly recommend it.