We had this tree. We had this big ugly, stupid, wonderful, tragic tree in our front yard when I was growing up. Stupid to think of a tree, but we had this tree. It stood proud along the left side of our driveway, offering shade, amusement and acoustics for the wind to play. It had a branch, a lovely, thick, welcoming branch that jutted out both just high enough and just low enough to challenge a frolicking childhood. That branch was a son of a bitch and was a glorious hand reaching out. It was literally shaped like a bicep and when you got into it, when you got it, when you conquered it, it lifted you to the next branch, and the next branch and the next branch, but it wasn’t gonna let you have it for free. I must’ve tried to get that branch for years.
The bark of that tree was what kept you entertained prior to being able to even dare that branch. I literally could not describe to you the color of that bark, it was gray, green, brownish, blue, cloudy, rough and strangely comforting. I remember occasionally being able to get a piece off, simply because I was an asshole kid seeing “what if”, and yet I don’t ever remember it having a bare spot.
The crazy thing about the tree was that, at some point, it was neutered. I don’t know any other way to explain it, but due to some disease or something being wrong with the tree a large top portion of it needed to be chopped off. However, this portion of the tree that was chopped off was easily twenty feet above the ground. So there it was, this majestic fucking thing that had been maimed simply to stay alive. This tree, at this point, represented our family more than I ever realized. It was even more brilliant, far from perfect, flawed, partially beaten down, not entirely whole, but yet still glorious in the summer, full of leaves, full of shade, and with that bicep branch waiting to provide you the challenge.
The amazing thing is that the top of the tree was simply flat, as flat as a table. I once watched Superman climb into that tree and fly from that top spot, I saw him fly and I saw him dance and I saw him do a handstand on it. Years later I would follow suit, always thinking, if I could just do that, he did that, and if I could do that, I could be as strong and as daring and as brave and as unphased as he was, and I did it. I grabbed that bicep branch that said I dare you, and let me give you a boost, and I climbed to that spot and I flew, and I sat, and I felt great and accomplished.
Turns out more than kryptonite can challenge Superman and that despite the additional years it gave, that tree would be challenged as well. It seems dumb, it seems really fucking dumb to talk about a tree, but when I close my eyes and I think of the front yard of my childhood home, and I think about the child I was growing up there, that tree is there, that marvelous, flawed, hanging on for tomorrow tree was there.
Honestly, when I look back and think about it rationally, I can’t wrap my head around its continued existence, other than it says more about my Mother than anything else. Here was this tree that she just wouldn’t give up on. We didn’t have much money, and it had to cost a relative shitload to cut off that top portion of that tree that had whatever issue it had, but she did it. She did it because she would never give up on trying to move things forward, no matter how slowly or slightly, she would look for avenues and possibilities to keep it going, to give it a shot, to not give up…….for at least as long as it mattered. Stupid, glorious tree.
(photography credit to my sister, who I think was taking the picture to “show Mom”)
P.S. – So I’m going against my own original “rules” I had in my head, which was to let these entries more or less just roll out of my head onto the page without much editing. Not that this is really editing, but I wanted to add a P.S., because as I was preparing to launch this glorious site and I was in the process of defining what it is, what it means, and why it matters, I realized that this entry sort of encapsulated what was manifesting from my thoughts. Not so much the entry but the tree rather. This tree is sort of the epitome of this thing, here was this largely insignificant thing that, when looking back on it, was actually so outstandingly significant in it’s own quiet way of just being there and being a part of my life. There is meaning in it in so many ways, I know, it’s a stupid amputated tree, but when I was pontificating one night I just thought, man, and woman, this is it. The consequentially inconsequential. Sorry to add it on, and like I said, I don’t know where this “thing” is going or what it will become, but I’m just gonna roll with it and this entry didn’t feel complete without me applying updated perspective on it. Shit, this entry might change 12 more times. That’s the great thing about “art” for a procrastinator…it’s never done.