Playing between the trees
There were times throughout my life where, like many other children, I got shunned outside to play with others, or on my own, away from adult conversations we could hear anyway. Sometimes it didn't bother me. I loved the smell of dirt and earth and flowers and even pollen from the trees I was (am) allergic to.
When we visited my aunt I was a gardener. An adventurer. A florist. She had tall rose bushes that she allowed me to trim after I watered all of her plants. And how I miss that innocent feeling of trust in my skills to not hurt myself with her dull garden shears or the hooked thorns on the stems. Her trust in me that I would cut off dead roses and leave the newly budding ones be. How happy she sounded when I handed her the few perfect stems with roses open to the sky in shades of white, yellow, pink and red. I know now that much of her tone was a facade honed by being a teacher for many years, and what I was experiencing as transformative was to her a passing moment with mild attachment to my devotion. Cute. Girl with the long curly hair and strangely intelligent eyes, picking me flowers after asking permission for every step of her mission. If she can remember it now, now that she is older, and tired, with hair greying and skin tan and taut as leather... her heart has turned bitter and it pains me to know her now when I remember her then. Perhaps she never changed, and I am the only one who grew and changed enough that her hatred can now scorn me as well. But somehow... I think it might be both. I miss the willow tree in their old front yard. It was this massive, thick tree that cast enough shade from its low hanging branches to cover two cars during summer. I remember it had three sturdy main branches that grew from its midriff. And even though I hated heights, I could climb the lowest one closest to the white precast wall and throw my legs and arms around it, safe. My heart would stop racing if my cousins and brother left me alone. I would hear the slight whistle and shimmer that the leaves made in the breeze. I felt slight moisture on my skin, maybe sweat, but also this fine mist that only the willow made me feel so vividly. And slowly, anxiously, I'd move my body until I straddled that branch, hands still digging into its strangely spongy bark, flaking away with flecks of green moss, and just... breathe. For a moment in time I would be someone else. Sometimes I thought of Pocahontas. Although this willow did not speak, she was just as magical to me. Then the spell would be broken by boys yelling and chasing and playing with each other and the dogs, or the adults would remember I exist and call my name. And the fear would return and I would whimper the entire way back down the tree... back into reality.
Other times I remember the pine shaped mystery trees of my primary school in grade 1. Two trees, one shorter than the other but both leaning into each other as if to hug one another, towering into the sky. They used to be hide outs, homes, arches, wedding chapels and, on days when I was alone, safety from prying eyes while I ate my lunch, wrote messages in the dry fine sand, or cried before the bell rang. They removed both trees, close to a decade ago, after I couldn't use them anyway, but it still felt like mourning a friend.
My father's parents only saw us...maybe four times a year. Christmases before the divorce, before my uncle died. I only had two cousins on that side, and one of them was so much younger than us, that he rarely played with us. If we ever really played at all. We could swing there, and there was a seesaw, but we always ended up talking and catching up instead. I hated their bottlebrush tree. It had bees. I am allergic to bees. And the protruding red tubes of hair made my skin itch and nose run anyway. But in these cement planters outside the walkway, the ones with animals on the side, were smaller trees. And I adored them. Always green, and pointing straight up. I was convinced they would someday grow taller than their house, taller than the palm trees across the street. But much like them, my paternal grandparents, those trees never grew, always staying small and closed off and stuck in a world that did change around them.
Now I'm an adult, and these memories haunt me like hymns from days in church that I can barely remember the words of. But the sentiment and tunes ruminate in my mind, and I hear the hollow acoustics bounce back echoes from every heavy wooden bench and brick wall in my mind. I always preferred church empty anyway. When I could talk to God on my own, without every judgemental stare and hate sharpened tongue making me omit my truths. Turns out life is better without those people at all. I don't miss their blank faces or false sweet tones, or mentions of how I was good because I was silent...I was good because I was scared. But I do miss the trees. And the wind. And butterflies. And the small yellow blooms with round petals the size of a pencil eraser that, against all odds, grew from the cracks in the pavement. I found my holy love when they were gone, looking away, and I could truly see the world around me before pain and shame and fear and violence stole away my last innocence.
What a blessing to have known it, even if now it is lost. What a beautiful thing it was to play between the trees. What a tragedy to want to cling to the hurt those memories still bring.
