Oak Tree 1

Friday

I love trees. I have no idea what their given names are but I do love these gentle giants housed so peacefully beside the concrete laced urbanites. I love how the wind picks up the golden-brown autumn leaves up into the air and the way they magically sail through the trees. Often as a child, I would gaze open mouthed at how tall these wondrous things were. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said through Sherlock Holmes, ‘my dear Watson, you see but you do not observe.’ I think I quite accidentally did both. You see everyone knows: without trees, we would, quite frankly die; but how many people realize their proportion of importance? You can survive without food for three months. You can survive without water for three days. Without oxygen, you die within minutes. Like gods amongst men, ‘they’ let us breathe. I argue that trees (which are just oversized plants) are more important than food and water.
Man saw the moon. He wanted to reach it. Man saw the ocean and he wanted to cross it. Man saw Everest and he wanted to climb it. And all of these things man succeeded in doing. I saw the top branch of oak tree 1 and I wondered if I could reach its summit. This is the story of a failed attempt to do something I thought as an eleven year old child was impossible.
I wish I could say that there was a rational reason explaining why I chose to do this. There isn’t. It wasn’t for an unpopular child trying to get popular or a boy trying to impress or get a girl. The idea just popped into my head one day. And I did it alone.
I wish I could say that I had proper climbing equipment. I lived on a council estate.
To be fair, my older brother did buy something resembling climbing equipment at the local Sunday market. This was almost a year later though. I nearly used it to abseil down from our balcony on the first floor. I went over the balcony edge but my sister bottled it and the threat of fetching mum ended that plot.
Oak Tree 1 was the biggest tree in my local neighbourhood. Apart from its size there was nothing else distinguishing it from any other tree in the Park. I approached the tree after school on a sunny Friday afternoon. I stuck a label on the tree and named it Oak Tree 1.
The first thing I did was take a vertical jump to reach the branch closest to the floor. I then took the jump after a run. I then tried to push off the trunk with one foot after a run. The bough was just too high. I looked up at the branch. I had no idea how I was going to reach it.
Blood seeped out of my elbows. Grass stained my knees. Mud dirtied up my backside. I got some on my face as well. With my hand on my hip, slightly out of breath, I looked up at the tree and realized that this was going to be hard. I put my hand in my pockets and walked completely round the tree. Once I had returned to my original spot, in a fit of frustration, I kicked the tree once before leaving.
I took a last look at the tree from the park gates. I raised a hand so as to offer it an apology. I took it down quickly once I realized that I was apologising to a tree. Trees don't feel pain. They don't have brains. Though I suppose they must feel something somewhere. They repair themselves when they are cut. How do they know to do that? I wondered. Anyway, you shouldn't be kicking stuff really...
End of day one