You are not even listening. This is the last drama picnic that we will be at together and I will miss you next year when you are away in college. I look at you again to see if you are as bored as I am and you catch my eye with a smile. You nod to the tree and I start to smile. You put your hand over your mouth and tap your lips with your fingers, I make little twists in my newly shorn hair and it�s all set. �Where are they going� one of the freshmen says watching us dart away from the group. �To the tree,� Becky says, �They do this every year. Run off to the tree and climb higher than the year before.� You are ahead of me like a ray of light and you slow down to beam a smile at me. You hair had escaped from the sloppy knot you had it in and was shimmering in the sun. I picked up some clovers and threw them at you, �Venus� and we laughed. But you were. You were seventeen and the most beautiful girl I had even seen. Golden on even the dullest of days. Radiant and illuminating everything that was graced by your touch. You took my hand and I burned as we stood collecting our breaths at the foot of the tree. I think that you liked me because I would climb with you. I think that you liked me because this was our tradition, separate from the rest. You always lead. I liked to think that you lit the way, weaving your way through the branches bare legs flashing. �You still back there?� �Yeah.� I could hear your laughter amongst the rustling leaves. �I�m taking you to my favourite hiding place.� �Really?� �Yeah. It�s in these branches just ahead.� You took me to your tree house in the highest and most hidden boughs of the tree. I�d asked you once how old you thought the tree was and you replied that it had been here when the town was settled hundreds of years ago. And seeing your tree house, I did not doubt you. The limbs twisted and winded, bending and basking in the sun for what seemed like miles. We were so very high up and still the branches were sturdy. �Do you like it?� you asked once I was inside. It was beautiful with the sun falling just so. Pillows and books and your drawings and music. You�d even water proofed it and added some rugs. And the sun falling just so and your hair� �I come here when I want to be alone. I come here to daydream.� �Well, you are not alone today, though you may daydream all you�d like.� �No, no I�m not alone. And I didn�t bring you here so that I can day dream.� And you smiled. And it was so loud, it was the color of jazz, and it was soft like the sun falling just so on your shoulders and neck bare in your tank top. �What do you want to do?� you asked. And I blushed. It was like you�d lit a fire in me and I looked down at the rug hoping that the breeze from the trees would put it out. Smiling and moving towards me, �Anything in particular?� I slowly shook my head yes and reached for the thing in the tree house that I most wanted. Have you ever kissed sunlight? We stayed in your special place arms, and legs, and lips, and tongues, and laughter intertwined like roots, like growing into something miles and miles high until the sun went down. We pretended that we were trees, winding and bending, and breaking into new beauty. And you were like kissing sunlight. And you tasted like morning. It was time to go. The stars were threatening and we�d been gone. It�s funny how the blink of an eye erases time like that. And at the bottom of the tree I blushed, �We forgot to initial with the Sharpie. How will we know?� �We have made our mark in different places. How can we forget? And besides. That tree now keeps one of our most beautiful secrets.� This is many years later. And you have since moved away and gone to college. But I still long to climb trees when the summer is late. I still look up at their branches and smile and wonder what beautiful secrets they keep. . How Rude! - Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2004 - 12:16 PM One small step but no giant leap. - Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2003 - 11:17 AM Where's George? - Thursday, Sept. 25, 2003 - 12:48 PM |
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