The light August wind sways and rocks us in the chaise lounge limbs of the tree in which we sit. We are in the top limbs now, having spent the summer here in this huge old cherry tree, immersed in some sort of quest to eat all of her fruit.

Our visits had begun in June before the cherries were ripe. We went to the tree every day in hopes that the fruit was ready, that we could ascend and begin. We didn’t know then that we would finish the cherries, that we would spend the entire summer in the enclosure of that tree. We had no idea that we were predisposed to life in the trees, having carried it with us through the ages. It is only now that I understand that the comfort and freedom, which I felt within the embrace of the tree, came from an innate sense of security. From having been there before.

As the cherries ripen, we start low in the safety of the sturdy limbs and move upward as the summer moves onward. We talk, we laugh, we munch cherries and spit the pits. We are safe, high up in the limbs and under the great canopy. We can see you, but you cannot see us. We can hear but are not heard. We look out over our neighborhood and better understand our surroundings. In the evening we climb down out of the tree and return to our caves for we are no longer tree dwellers. We have conquered the great grasslands and it is here that we will stay for awhile.

As I write this today I wonder, like Loren Eiseley, where we will go from here and what it is that we will never see.  But as I climbed out of the tree for the last time that summer I did not wonder, because I was a child and children live in the now. The cherry tree was history and I was on to yet another quest.

Story by L Wich::Landscape Architecture assignment to write a childhood memory depicting prospect and refuge.

ARTWORK