free write.

I feel the paper skin of the tree near the oval beneath my fingers, in memory, I touch it and it touches back like glad wrap sticking to ones fingers. In this tree I would sit after climbing, it was a story, I told it to myself so that I could learn to listen. It had leaves that glittered like water droplets, they decayed like all things do and they also grew again. I was five years old and I was sitting under this tree with my friend, I had a purple water bottle with fairies on it, the water bottle had a band that could be worn across your body, so as to keep it safe. Keeping ones possessions safe was an exciting possibility to my five year old self, I liked the responsibility and I also liked ignoring that responsibility, I lost my possessions all the time, I mourned them, I experienced guilt - when I did keep things safe I would be so proud, I would treasure said things. Some things were lost to forces beyond my control – an older boy, a bully, a mean kid, he took my small wooden white toy rocking horse and buried it in the sand pit. My friend told me she had seen him once whipping a younger school kid with a skipping rope, someone else told me he killed his dog. Every day at recess for the rest of the week I would dig through the pit of sand, other kids in my class would help me, it was an exciting mission of togetherness, it prepared me for the community experience of grief, one day we found the broken pieces and I mourned the loss of the dignified resignation to a task, the sense of purpose I’d so briefly experienced. We went back to dangling our legs off the thicker lower branches of the papery tree and playing with its strips of skin that we picked at like scabs, the balance in the way it gave in to our grimy fingers (with nails bitten to the quick) and resisted just enough, was full of magical, physical intrigue.