I couldn’t remember the last time I climbed a tree. The desire just goes away as you grow, like avoiding sidewalk cracks. I guess you just stop looking up or looking down at some point in your life. It’s just all ahead of you and that’s it. Or maybe it’s behind you? Like what I’m feeling right now.
Or maybe if you’ve grown up in a city, maybe you’ve never even climbed a tree. Are you even allowed to climb trees in Central Park?
Hold on…
Okay, I had to look it up. This is from the NYC Parks Prohibited Uses webpage:
“No person shall climb upon any wall, fence, shelter, tree, shrub, fountain or other vegetation, or any structure or statue not specifically intended for climbing purposes.”
Now, this makes me sad. Generations of kids not allowed to climb trees? Although, if we’re being technical, couldn’t you get around the rules by arguing a tree is indeed – specifically intended, in fact – for “climbing purposes?”
There’s something to not having your feet fixed to the ground. It happens a lot as a kid. Your legs are too short for a chair or someone is carrying you. But at a certain point you don’t even jump anymore. Your whole life becomes weight pressed against your heels. Maybe that’s why my dad spends so much time in a recliner. When else is he off his feet?
But I forgot how much climbing a tree can tear up your wrists and forearms. At first I hesitated when Sora invited me up. But I bit my solo cup and leapt for a branch. I felt the bark scrap into my flesh.
The next branch I grabbed was worse. (yet someone felt better?) I kinda liked the feeling of bark pressing into my forearms. But then the branch I stood on to push myself up snapped. My feet were dangling. Then my forearms really hurt.
So now I had a choice. I ether drop down, or I take Sora’s hand and let her pull me up.
I didn’t know how I’d get down, but I let her pull me up. I swung my foot to the trunk, and pushed off. She pulled. My cup fell out of my mouth, and tumbled to the ground below.
She said, “I hope the wave does take me because otherwise I’ll have to jump down into your piss and swill.”
I mean, she was like that. Up until the very end. She never seemed scared. She…. fuck.
…yeah, I’m not ready to talk about that yet.
You know how there are some people who, from the moment you meet them, change your life? You just know you are now forever different. Like they’ve come from the future and already have all the answers. That was my friend, Ben. That was Sora. It’s rare, but you don’t forget when it happens. When I took her hand, I just knew. There is everything before this moment, and there is everything to follow.
I’m still trying to sort it all out.