Climbing trees

A wooden ladder leaned against the enormous trunk of my maple tree. The rungs of that ladder became polished by my feet as I climbed up and down it, day after day and year after year. In that tree I enacted many imaginary dramas, clambering back and forth through different configurations of branches that formed distinct rooms. Sometimes I tried to climb into higher into the branches I rarely touched. Often, I just sat there. Things might have been different if I had brothers and sisters my own age to play with me or if I had parents who felt they had to keep me employed in profitable activity, but I did not have either of those things. Instead, I had time, which passed in a slow, wordless way, marked by shifts in the wind and changing shadows.

With that gift of time, I learned to wait silently with my head against a branch until I was filled with peace. It didn't happen right away, but if I waited long enough, I knew that a sweet, bright sensation would pass through me and leave me content. Then, I could sit in that tree without any words in my head, and know I was part of the branches, the leaves, and the wind. I was part of bird cries, sunshine, and the smell of mud.

In ninth grade, when my family built a new house on part of our land, I lost my tree. The tree was still there – I think it is still standing today -- but when I climbed it, our new neighbors could easily see me. Ninth graders, I thought, were a little too big to climb trees so conspicuously, and so I stopped. With that, I lost my way of relating to God, although I would not have been able to put those words on it at the time. Before ninth grade, I understood the peace that I found in that tree was part of my world, like a small child understands its mother's love to be an inevitable part of existence. When I could no longer climb the tree, I believed the loss was an unavoidable part of growing up, and I felt ashamed by my frantic grief.

I was a young adult before I recognized my time in that tree as a holy. When I started to attend Friends Meeting, the process of settling into waiting worship was completely familiar to me from my time in the maple. Instead of sitting with my head against a branch, I sat on a chair in a room full of people and I learned that I could find the peace of God there, as well. I felt the relief of someone who has been freed from a chronic pain.

More than 20 years after I stopped climbing my beloved maple, I have begun climbing trees again. This fall, I have occasionally let myself wander out to the maples on the western edge of our shelter belt and pull myself into their branches. Yesterday, as I sat down to write an essay for this blog, I kept hearing in my heart that it was time to climb a tree. I fought the frivolous urge valiantly until something in my heart said, "You are being disobedient.” With a sigh, I turned off the monitor and went outside. As I approached the trees, I suddenly had to fight back tears, which passed as quickly as the shadow of cloud. I pulled myself up into a maple, looked out into the turned earth of the cornfield, and breathed the earthy scent of the neighbor's cattle. The narrow tree limbs that bent down to the dry grass were so smooth they became golden with reflected sunshine. Fragrant leaves called me from the base of the trunk, so I swung myself down and flopped down amongst them, arms stretched wide as I gazed up at the brilliant pattern of slim gray against the blue. Like the tree limbs, I felt radiant with reflected light.