Asterisk's Tree

My favorite place in the world is in this town. Not the town itself, of course, although I love certain things about it—like the tiny main street, the quaint woodsy feel about the outskirts, the rocky beaches surrounded by towering bluffs, and the old rail-road bridges, their tar painted trellises standing all black against the sky. It’s beautiful here, and I will always love it…but my favorite spot is much more contained. 

There’s a tree in the side yard of our property. It's big old cedar that stands in front of our garage, threatening to swallow it up with its wide, reaching branches. That’s my tree. It’s a place I’ve played since I was probably about six years old, a place that’s always been available, no matter what. I love that tree.

The way the branches drape around it creates a perfectly secluded area around the trunk—quite like a fort. There are a couple of spots where you can duck under and reach the inside—a dark, shady under area that could be a fort, a castle, a cave, or whatever it was that I wanted. 

As I got older, I stopped hiding in the scaly, fan like draping leaves and moved to climbing up the tree. The lowest branches were too high up to reach, but I learned that they could be climbed from the base—where they touched the ground—to the trunk of the tree, and up from there.

My brother and I spend hours playing in that tree, doing flips on the lower branches, and scaling higher ones as a challenge.

When I was about 13, we build a tree house with my dad over the duration of a couple weekends—first making a blue print, then putting the wood together, setting it up, and then attaching it to the tree. The last step was the rope latter that I made all by myself—not with convenience in mind, but in how well it could be pulled up into the tree house to prevent “intruders.”

I recall doing my homework up there in the chilly October air, sitting for hours watching birds and breezes in the spring, and having massive water fights with my brother. He had a super soaker and would shoot me from the ground, while I threw water balloons out of a bucket, sometimes retreating higher and higher into the tree to get away from the water.

Coming back to Washington, I always reconnect with the tree, the tree house, and the gorgeous view of the farmland over the roof of the garage. I love the smell of the bark, the subtle feel of the sun beating through the leaves, and the sound of the wind in the branches of that tree, and the surrounding others. It’s my favorite place. And yes, there are some close seconds, including the Star Trees on campus, the top of Blue Mountain—especially in the summer—in the Olympics, and Hogback Ridge, owned by Boise Cascade in Eastern Washington, but it’s the tree, every time, because that tree is home to so many memories. That tree holds my heart.


So this week, on my break from school, it was such a relief to come home to find sun, warmth, and the soothing comfort of the smell, sound, and feel of the tree. I climbed up the rope ladder, into the tree house, and after brushing out years worth of cedar leaves and needles, just sat on the floor of the tree house, thinking. I climbed up the tree on both sides, going higher than I've ever climbed before, just because I felt like I should. You can see the sound from up there.
Yeah, my tree house is an ocean view property (sort of).
Coming back down, I ended up on a set of branches eye level with the power-lines, and just sat up there, rocking back and forth in the wind, listening to the rustling of the leaves and branches, and the occasional bird calls. I saw a wood pecker, and I watched the sun change position on the island out in the sound. For a little while, I wasn't a busy college senior, I wasn't a terrified young adult starting out into the real world, I wasn't *Asterisk, I just... was.

That kind of peacefulness is exactly what I missed while I was away at school in the city.

Until next time,
~Asterisk