The trees I used to climb are aging. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, one willow is dead. The other is not what it once was. The harsh Idaho winds and winters have taken their toll. Not to mention the toll that we took, though we never drove nails in that one. Some of my favorite branches have succumbed to the elements, and are no longer there, making my mind and faded memory attempt to fill in the gaps that exist when I look up.
Scar
Encompassed by the Branches
No Ordinary Apple Tree
There was one branch I regarded as the “Holy Grail.” I never was brave enough to venture up to that branch, but at least one of my brothers was: Jesse. I was always a little jealous of him for being braver than I.
The Highest We Dared
Goodbye
Now Our Children Play Here
Us four older siblings (I’m the oldest of eight) are now in our thirties. I myself am nearing 40. We haven’t played back there as children play for many years, but we, along with the younger four siblings, still gather back there in the summer, and it is now our children that play there. Many of them are still too little to be climbing trees, but in a few years they’ll be purposing those old willows and apple trees to fit their own wild imaginations.
We went to my parents for Thanksgiving in Idaho Falls this year. During the drive up, my thoughts were occupied by memories of the countless hours spent in the backyard while growing up. Here, my younger brothers and I re-enacted movies, from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to Jurassic Park. We dug holes, most, or maybe all, of which we filled with water to play in the mud. We had hundreds of campfires. We did our schoolwork in the treehouse we built out of old pallets and scrap lumber we scrounged from construction sites. And we climbed every tree. We spent just as much time scrambling through their limbs as we spent on the ground. Those trees weren’t just trees to us. They were houses, office buildings, spaceships—anything our imaginations required them to be.
Over the course of our stay, I spent some time photographing those trees, one of which has died. Most likely from all the nails we drove into it building our tree house. These are just a few of the photographs I made.
The Journey Begins Here
I Dare You To Jump
Remains