Trees and the Rapture by the Caveat Queen
"In a real dark
night of
the soul it is always three o'clock in
the morning."--F. Scott Fitzgerald.
When I first read these words, it
was as though I had been waiting for Fitzgerald to explain myself to me. Any worrier is an insomniac, and vice
versa. I have been both since
childhood. My earliest memories are of
listening to wind whipping through the branches of the 300-year old oak tree
outside my bedroom window. I would terrify
myself with thoughts first of whether I had let the cat in, or left any toys
out, and if not whether any or all would blow away. Then, as the hour grew later, my fears would
turn to the tree itself. Not so much
about any harm it could cause, strangely enough, as that would be the sensible
thing to be afraid of, the heavy branches that could break off and smash
windows, or if the whole thing came up, the damage it could do to the roof or
the house itself. No, being the special
variety of worrier that I was sprouting to be, my fears were centered on the
terrible nature of the idea that this tree was so very old. Three hundred
years…now how anyone knew its age while it was still standing, I do not
know. This was just what I had been
told, and at 5 years old, I wasn’t in any position to argue the point. When I considered this concept during the
day, it didn’t really matter to me at all.
I didn’t even really consider it anyway, as I swung on the plank that
hung from two pieces of rope that my daddy had tied to one of its enormous
branches, or ran around its base, chasing Timid Timothy, my kitten (so named
after his look-a-like in my favorite book, and ironically he and the kitten in
the story…and I…all shared kindred spirits which are probably obvious from the
title.)
