Inklings 2016

Julia Bernstein

Upon returning to my house, I had a revelation. The magnet wasn’t so

much my house, but rather, my tree. So I climbed up. The rough texture

of the tree bark scratching my leg hardly bothered me. I was too focused

on what seemed most important at the time, reaching my spot. Grasping

deliberately for the branch above my head, I pulled myself up to my spot

and sat down for what felt like an hour, but was only a few simple minutes.

I inhaled the smell of nature, and then exhaled it as if, at that moment, the

release ofmy breathwould free all of the stress and negative thoughts from

my mind through my breath alone. There was complete silence; unbroken

and uninterrupted. Suddenly, I heard a creak, followed by the opening of a

door. My heart skipped a beat.

He walked outside onto the porch, curious but determined. I wondered

why. Why did my dad look so curious? And the expression on his face…

What did it mean? He walked down the stairs, turning his head as if he

was looking for something, and then I realized – I was that something. He

paced back and forth, until he was within about twenty feet of me. Without

any detection of his daughter sitting right above him in a tree, he did one

last check around the yard, and he started heading back inside. But, as he

was opening the door, he shook his head, and turned around, continuing

the search. A wave of feelings washed over me, including a surge of relief,

which confusedme at the time. I moved around to find amore comfortable

spot, inadvertently causing the leaves to sing their song, catching my dad’s

attention. He pivoted towards the tree and walked until he was directly

belowme.

“Hey,” he said as if he knew I was there all along.

“Hey.”

I then felt it was time to leave the tree and return to reality. I climbed down

the tree and walked with my dad back into the house without speaking, as

if nothing had happened.

I learned a thing or two about myself being in that tree. I learned, for one,

that isolation comes easily to me. There comes a connection to the body

when you are alone, and that connection extends out to the mind. In

isolation I’m able to visualize, and even control my thoughts. I find comfort

in this, because, on a daily basis, I feel the exact opposite. So I play around

with this power that I obtain from my tree, and think of happy times and

become nostalgic. I think of sad times, only to be filled with melancholy.

So instead of thinking of the past, I think of the present. I stare in front of

me at my surroundings. I take time to admire the beauty of each individual

branch and leaf.

Along with the control that I have in that tree, I also feel a sense of

detachment from each person, each task, each duty. I ignore them for a

while and instead, paymore attention to the little details that no one seems

to notice. I notice how the sun peers through the leaves and branches as if

it’s trying to grasp the earth, how the veins of the leaves look like a spider

web, or how the humble patterns of the bark look like a work of art. The

little things that mean so much but are thought of so little. These things

arewhy I amdrawn to this tree. But I findmyself visitingmy personal utopia

less and less as the days go by. Maybe I am growing up - maybe I don’t need

that tree anymore.

Perspective

Vanessa Cilloniz (Digital Photograph)