A birthday post, why not? Yesterday I turned 61 years of age. 732 months, if I operated my desktop calculator correctly. Anyway it’s been a minute!
When I think of my youth, there’s a little moment which bubbles up from my memories often. Age uncertain, though I imagine 10 or 11, given the activities, I climbed a tree in Live Oak Park. The tree is still there, I think – a beautiful old conifer by the creek. As a boy I got myself up it, in shorts and tennis shoes, thrilled to discover that I could just keep climbing this tree and get higher and higher. At a certain point the branches became too thin to ascend any further, so I stopped, and looked around. And looked.. Down!
Now, see, I have a very healthy fear of heights, as it turns out. I wasn’t keenly aware of this yet, but now, way up in this tree, I did understand. The tree swayed gently in the breeze and my added weight near the top of it added to the swaying, as I, for the moment paralyzed with fright, did consider the folly of my actions. I must get down. But how? A misstep will result in grievous injury or death, this I knew, but whysoever did I not consider this before reveling in my newfound climbing prowess?
No matter, the deed is done, I counseled myself. Now I must strategize a way down. Turns out climbing up is easier than climbing down. You see the way ahead, grasp the branches, use them as footholds, propel yourself skyward, it’s fun! Down is another matter. Here for the first time at such a height, alone with a grand view of North Berkeley and my thoughts, I examined one step, one series of moves, to lower myself carefully one foot or so, down this towering monument of living wood and pine needles, in the direction of Terra Firma.
Gravity, how we love thee. Except when it may kill us. One branch at a time, carefully considering my steps and movements with the care of an Alex Honnold, only I am not Alex Honnold, I descended at a fraction of the pace of my ascent, learning and appreciating the very meaning of patience.
Perhaps an hour later, finally on the ground, my bicycle still leaning unlocked against the tree, I celebrated my continued existence and enjoyed a laugh with myself, the lessons learned and earned from this adventure settling within me. I mounted the bike and rode triumphantly toward home. Carefully I rode, without a helmet or other protective gear, as most of us free-range kids in the mid 1970s tended to do.
Did I wipe out sometimes? Yes. Have a few proper scars to show for it, faded though they are. Did I learn from each mishap? Yeah, absolutely. I’m grateful to have grown into a man mostly intact. I’m grateful we weren’t video-recorded at every stage, I’m grateful I was not “helicoptered,” I’m grateful to have had a boyhood, before the accursed digital social networks. I was allowed that time on that tree alone. Allowed my lessons with gravity and mother nature my teachers, without any interference or spectators. For all of it I consider myself lucky and tremendously blessed.
For my mom and dad and their forebears, I’m so grateful for this life. For my friends and family and communities along the way, bandmates, colleagues, teachers, students, lovers, partners, and of course every cat I have ever known, and the doggies, I am deeply grateful. Oh and the trees. Long may they live, and may we let them live, indeed if we care at all for ourselves and especially our young.
I hope we let them climb and breathe and learn and yes and even fall and that we have the grace and patience to simply let them Be.
Thanks for your kind birthday wishes, happy birthdays to you on all of yours, and thanks to the infinite universe, I am glad to make your acquaintance. Here’s to another day. Love,
Eric
