My tree attraction wasn’t for just any tree. It was a particular birch tree I had grown to know in my early years – developing a kinship with its youth – planted on the same plot as I. Its delicate arms played in uncomplicated innocence, inviting me to circle around it. The poet Robert Frost wrote, “Birches” where, “I like to think some boy’s been swinging them . . . And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed, So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods, Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground, Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair . . . James Roy Blair even wrote a book titled, “The Birch Trees” where he prefaced, “ I’ll always remember the birches for as long as I live. It’s the silver bark of the birch, the lenticels, and the height they grow to whilst remaining slim . . . but they always remind me of home.”
My tree had a purpose back then. Both followed me throughout my story.