by nothingtosay » Tue Aug 26, 2008 10:32 am
Chapter 7
I love to watch dad work. Actually I love hearing him read out loud his stories, even though he's been in the states for long, his British accent is still as crisp as the collar of his shirts. I could listen to him talk on and on, the words always come out soft and somehow heavy. Not sad. Weary maybe, almost peaceful.
Living in house with two boys, it’s not really conductive to creative writing. And since the library is mom's make-shift office, he's left with the garage, which is filled with stuff that everyone thinks they need but no one ever uses, he reads outside.
Outside is the best place to work, even though the yard is not much to look at. It was never much of a yard but after I started raising chickens, things didn’t exactly improve either. But he doesn’t seem to mind.
It’s just him, his pen and his paper. It’s like he's transcended the yard, the neighborhood, and the whole outside world. Like he's possessed by some graceful being spiritual being.
When I was younger, Giles would let me sit beside him on the porch or on his lap while he wrote, as long as I was quiet. And believe me, I don’t do quiet easily, but I discovered that after five or ten minutes without a peep, he'd start reading out loud or talking.
I also learned a lot of things about him that way. He told me all sorts of stories, on how he met my parents and such. What he did when he was my age, and other things, too- like how he got his first job.
When I got a little older, he still talked about himself and his childhood, but he also started asking questions about me. What was I learning at school? What book was I currently reading? What did I think about this or that. Does this certain line sound better or the other. Then one day he surprised me and asked me about Tara . Why was I so crazy about Tara?
I told him about her eyes, her hair, and the way her cheeks would blush, but i don't think I explained it very well because when I was done he shook his head and told me in a soft voice that I needed to start looking at the whole story.
I didn’t really know what he had meant by that, but it made me want to argue with him. How could he possibly understand Tara? He spends his days holed up in his stuffy library/coffee shop. He doesn’t know her!
But this was not an arguing spot. Those were scattered through out the house, but not out here. Nope, here was both our sanctuary.
We were both quiet for a record-braking amount of time before he stood up and kissed me on the forehead, "Proper lighting is everything, my dearest Willow"
Proper lighting? What was that suppose to mean? I sat there wondering, but I was afraid that by asking I'd be admitting that I wasn't mature enough to understand, and for some reason it felt obvious. Like I should understand.
And the older I got, the more philosophical he seemed to get. I don’t know if he really got more philosophical or if he just thought I could handle it, now that I was in the double digits.
Most of the things that we had talked about floated around me, but once in a while something would happen and I would understand exactly what he meant. "A hero is more than just the sum of his parts", he would tell me, and then go on to explain how a horse is just a horse, and his "magical" sword itself is truly just a sword, and the sun that shone above his head that seemed as though he was blessed was just a beam of light, but put them all together and you've got magic.
I understood what he was saying. but I never felt what he was saying until one day when I was up in the Willow tree. That tree was on a big vacant lot, giving shade in the summer and a place for birds to nest in the spring. It had a built-in slide for us, too. Its trunk bent up and around in almost a complete spiral, and it was so much fun to ride down. My mom told me she thought the tree must have been damaged as a sapling but survived, and now, maybe a hundred years later, it was still there. the biggest tree she'd seen. "A testimony to endurance" is what she called it.
I had always played in the tree, but I didn’t go all the way up top until the fifth grade, when I went up to rescue a kite that was stuck in its branches. I'd first spotted the kite floating free through the air then saw it dive-bomb somewhere up the hill by the tree.
I’ve seen James and Matt fly kites before and I know—sometimes they’re gone forever, and sometimes they’re just waiting in the middle of the road for you to rescue them. Kites can be lucky or they can be ornery. I’ve had both kinds, and a lucky kite is definitely worth chasing after.
And this kite looked lucky to me.
It wasn’t anything fancy, just an old-fashioned diamond with blue and yellow stripes. It stuttered along in a friendly way, and when it crashed down, it seemed to so do from exhaustion as opposed to spite. Ornery kites dive-bomb out of spite, they never get exhausted because they won’t stay up long enough to tire out, 30 feet up they just sort of smirk at you and crash for the fun of it.
So Scooby and I ran up to Leslie Street, and after scouting out the road, Scoobe started barking at the willow tree. I looked up and spotted it, too, flashing blue and yellow through the branches.
It was a long way up, and James or Matt was not home yet so I couldn’t ask them to get it for me. But I thought I’d give it a shot. I shinnied up the trunk, took a shortcut across the slide, and started climbing. Scoobe kept a good eye on me, barking me along, and soon I was higher than I’d ever been. But still the kite seemed eons away.
And then from below me I noticed Tara coming around the corner and through the vacant lot. And I could tell from the way she looked up that it was her kite.
What a lucky, lucky kite this was turning out to be!
“Can you climb that high?” She yelled up to me.
“Sure!” I called back. And up, up, up, I went!
The higher I got, the more amazed I was by the view. I’d never seen a view like that! It was like being in an airplane above all the rooftops, above the other trees. It was like being above the world!
Then I looked down. Down at Tara. Big Mis-take! I suddenly felt weak and dizzy in the knees. I was miles off the ground! Tara shouted, “Can you reach it?”
I caught my breath and managed to calm down, “No problem!” then forced myself to concentrate on those blue and yellow stripes, to focus on them and only them as I climbed higher and higher. Finally I touched it; I had the kite in my hand!
But the string was caught on the branches above and I couldn’t seem to pull it free. Tara called, “Break the string!” and I managed to do just that.
I needed a minute to rest. To take a breather before going down. So instead of looking at the ground below me, I held on the kite tight and looked out. Out across the rooftops, across the horizon.
That’s when the fear of being up so high began to lift and in its place came the most amazing feeling-like I was flying. Just soaring above the earth, sailing among the clouds. Then I began to notice how wonderful the breeze smelled. It smelled like. . . sunshine and wild grass and pomegranates and rain! I couldn't stop breathing it in, filling my lungs again and again with the sweetest smell I’d ever known.
Tara called up, “Are you stuck?” which brought me down to earth. Carefully I backed up, prized stripes in hand, and as I worked my way
down, I could see Tara circling the tree, watching me to make sure I was okay. By the time I hit the slide, the heady feeling I’d had in the tree was changing into the heady realization that Tara and I were alone.
Alone. A-L-O-N-E. As in isolated from others alone.
My heart was positively racing as I held the kite out to her. But before she could take it, Scooby nudged me from behind and I could feel his cold, wet nose against my skin. Against my skin?!
I grabbed my jeans in the back, and that’s when I realized the seat of my pants we ripped WIDE open.
Tara coughed a little, then did a nervous laugh, so I could tell that she knew. And for once mine were the cheeks that were beet red. She took her kite and ran off, something about the kite being the owned by the kid she was watching, not that I was paying attention. I was too busy hiding the hole on my pants.
I did eventually get over that embarrassment, but never over the view. The view it was just so spectacular. I kept thinking of what it felt like to be up so high in that tree. I wanted to see it, to feel it, again. And again.
It wasn’t long before I got over the fear of being that high and found a spot that became my spot. I could sit there for hours on, just looking out at the world. Sunsets were amazing. Some days they’d be purple and pink, some days they’d be a blazing orange, setting fire to clouds across the horizon. The view from there was more than rooftops and clouds and wind and colors combined. It was magic indeed.
And I started marveling at how I was feeling both humble and majestic. How was that possible? How could I be so full of peace and wonder? How could this simple tree make me feel so complex? So alive.
I went up the tree every chance i got. And in junior high that became almost everyday since the school bus stop was at Leslie street. At first I just wanted to see how high I could get before the bus pulled up, but before long I was leaving the house early so I could get clear up my spot to see the sun rise, or the birds flutter about.
I tried to convince the other kids at the bus stop to climb up with me, even a little ways, but all of them said they didn’t want to get dirty. Turn down a chance to feel magic for a little dirt? Weenies!
I'd never told anyone about climbing the tree. Not my mother or father, being the sensible adults that they are, my mom would tell me it was too dangerous. And my father, I knew that he would understand but I was still afraid to confide in him. And of course my brothers, being guys, wouldn’t have cared.
So I kept quiet about it. Kept climbing, and felt a somewhat lonely joy as I looked out to the world.
Then a few months ago, I found myself talking to the tree. An entire conversation, just me and the tree. And on the climb down I felt like crying. Why didn’t I have someone real to talk to? Why didn’t I have a best friend like everyone else seemed to? Sure, there were kids I knew at school, but none of them were close friends.
That evening when my father went outside to take a walk. In the cold of the night, under the glare of the lamplights.
I got my jacket and followed him, quiet as a mouse.
After a few minutes he said, “What’ s on your mind sweetheart?”
He still continued to walk, and I looked at his back as I followed him along. Once he reached the end of the street, he faced me.“C’mon on Willow talk to me.”
I sighed heavily. “I understand why you write stories and come out for these long walks.”
He tried kidding me, “Would you mind explaining that to your Mom?”
“No really. I understand now about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts thing.”
“You do? Really? What happened? Tell me about it!”
So I told him about the Willow tree. About the view and the sounds and the colors and the wind, and how being up so high felt like flying. Felt like magic.
He didn’t interrupt me once, and when my confession was through, I looked at him and whispered, “Would you climb up there with me?”
He thought about it a long time, then smiled and said “I’m not much of a climber anymore, Willow , but I’ll give it shot. How about this weekend, when we’ve got lots of daylight to work with?”
“Great!”
I went to bed so excited that I don’t think I slept more than five minutes the whole night. Saturday was right around the corner. I couldn’t wait!
The next morning I raced to the bus stop extra early and climbed the tree. I caught the sun rising through the clouds, sending streaks of fire from one end of the world to the other. I was in the middle of making a mental list of all the things I was going to show Giles when I heard a noise from below.
There were four men stand around talking drinking from their thermoses, and I called down to them, “Im sorry but you cant park there….That’s a bus stop!” But before I could, one of the men reached into the back of a truck and started unloading tools.
Gloves. Ropes. Chains. Earmuffs. And then chain saws.
Three Chainsaws!
I still couldn’t get it. I kept looking around for it was that they could possibly cut down. Then Tara showed up, and started to talk to one of the men, and pretty soon he was pointing at me.
One of the men yelled out for me to get down.
I held on to the branch tighly, because I suddenly realized what it was that they were planning to cut down. “Your cutting down the tree?!”
“Yeah, now come on down.”
“But who told you to cut it down?”
“The owner?” he called back.
“but why?”
Even from above I could see him scowl. “Because his gonna build himself a house, and he cant very well do that with this tree in the way. Now get down little girl, we’ve got work to do!”
My heart was crazy with panic. I didn’t know what to do! I couldn’t leave and let them cut down the tree! I cried, “You cant cut it down! You just cant!”
One of the men shook his head and said, “Young lady, I’am this close to calling the police. You' re trespassing and obstructing progess on a contracted job. Now are you going to come down ”
“Don’t call me that! I have a name!”
“OKAY! What’s your name?”
“ Willow ”
“Not the trees! yours!”
“MY NAME IS WILLOW ANNE ROSENBERG!”
The bus was three blocks away. I’d never miss school for any reason, not even a legitimate illness, but I knew in my heart that I was going to miss it.
“You’re going to have to cut me down with it!” I yelled. Then I had an idea. They’d never cut it down if all of us were in the tree. They’d have to listen!
I called out to my classmates but they just stood there, staring at me.
I could see the bus, one block away. And when it arrived, and when the doors folded open, one by one they all climbed inside.
What happened next was a blur, the police cars, the fire brigade with their siren, dogs, police men with their mega phones, the whole neighborhood, camera crew and some guy saying it was his tree and he had the damned right to cut the tree down.
Somebody tracked down Jenny, who cried and pleaded for me to get down. She acted not at all the way a sensible mother should, but I was not coming down. I was not coming down.
Then my father came racing up, jumped out of our family van and after talking with my mother for a few minutes, he got the guy in the cherry picker to give him a lift up to where I was.
I started crying and tried to get him to look out over the rooftops, but he wouldn’t. He said no view was worth his princess’ safety.
He got me down and took me home. Only I could stay there. I couldn’t stand the sound of chainsaws in the distance.
So Giles took me with him to work, and he told me that he knew about the tree, even before I had mentioned it to him.
Then I started to cry, ‘It was just a tree….”
“I never want you to convince yourself of that. You and I both know it isn’t true.”
“but..”
“Bear with me a minute, would you?” He took a deep breath. “I want you to remember how you felt when you were up there.”
And I did. The feeling was still there.
“The spirit of the tree will always be with you.” he said and kissed the top of my head as he helped a customer.
Even though it was true, it didn’t help much, I must’ve cried for two weeks straight. Oh sure, I went to school and functioned the best I could, but I didn’t go wait at the bus stop.
I started riding a bike instead, taking the long way so I wouldn't have to pass by Leslie Street.
Then one evening when I was locked up in my room, my brothers came in. Well James stayed outside, who acted like a look out, and Matt came with something under a towel.
I could tell it was a painting because that’s how he transports the important ones when he shows in the mall.
“Hey Willow I have something you might like.”
I pushed down the book from my bed to clear some space for him. He sat down, resting the painting on the floor in front of him.
“So…” He hesitated a moment then handed me the painting “Me and Jame-..
“OI” James interrupted from the door
“I mean me and Spike hope you like it.”
I pulled off the towel, and there it was my tree. My beautiful, majestic Willow Tree. Through the branches he painted the fire of sunrise, and it seemed to me I could feel the wind. And way up in the tree was a tiny girl looking off into the distance, her cheeks flushed with the wind. With joy. With magic.
“Hey, Hey don’t cry Willow. We wanted it to help you, not hurt you.”
Angel stood up and smacked Spike at the back of his head.
“Ow!”
“She’s crying! You said it was gonna help her!”
“Its happy tears you nitwit!”
“Don’t call me nitwit! I’m older than you!”
“Yeah! Only by a MINUTE!”
In the blink of an eye, Spike had Angel in headlock and then they were rolling about on my floor. Once Spike got out of Angels grasp, he made a mad dash to their room and closed it with a slam. Followed by Angels incessant knocking.
I wiped the tears from my face and gave an amused laugh.
“Thank you” I choked out “Thank you, Spike and Angel.”
I hung the painting across the room from my bed. It’s the first thing I see every day and the last at night. And now that I can look at it without crying, I see more than the tree and what being up in its branches meant to me.
I see the day that my view of things around me started changing.
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re-editted: I'm starting to hate MS-Word, it did more errors than corrections...*sigh*
Last edited by
nothingtosay on Tue Aug 26, 2008 1:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
it always amazes me how bad my grammar is...
i told you i love you, i didnt say please love me too
i have a bad habit of bumping up old stories...shameless self-promotion
Losing her tree - the tree that held so much memory, while having someone she loves so much, someone she thought would have understood her, to betray her like that? No wonder Willow's upset.
for such presence. LOL.
*after re-attaching my jaw* omg! Broken Dolls... 
...am i starting to sound like a star-dazed fan?...
.
myself, I feel for her being shunned because of her brains. Again, a wonderful update. I can't wait to see Willow's spin on all this. I gotta wonder though. How on earth are they going to get past all this?
