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I love to watch my father paint. Or really, I love to hear him talk while he paints. The words always come out soft and somehow heavy when he's brushing on the layers of a landscape. Not sad. Weary, maybe, but peaceful.
My father doesn't have a studio or anything, and since the garage is stuffed with things that everyone thinks they need but no one ever uses, he paints outside.
Outside is where the best landscapes are, only they're nowhere near our house. So what he does is keep a camera in his truck. His job as a mason takes him to lots of different locations, and he's always on the lookout for a great sunrise or sunset, or even just a nice field with sheep or cows. Then he picks out one of the snapshots, clips it to his easel, and paints.
The paintings come out fine, but I've always felt a little sorry for him, having to paint beautiful scenes in our backyard, which is not exactly picturesque. It never was much of a yard, but after I started raising chickens, things didn't exactly improve.
Dad doesn't seem to see the backyard or the chickens when he's painting, though. It's not just the snapshot or the canvas he sees either. It's something much bigger. He gets this look in his eye like he's transcended the yard, the neighborhood, the world. And as his big, callused hands sweep a tiny brush against the canvas, it's almost like his body has been possessed by some graceful spiritual being.
When I was little, my dad would let me sit beside him on the porch while he painted, as long as I'd be quiet. I don't do quiet easily, but I discovered that after five or ten minutes without a peep, he'd start talking.
I've learned a lot about my dad that way. He told me all sorts of stories about what he'd done when he was my age, and other things, too — like how he got his first job delivering hay, and how he wished he'd finished college.
When I got a little older, he still talked about himself and his childhood, but he also started asking questions about me. What were we learning at school? What book was I currently reading? What did I think about this or that.
Then one time he surprised me and asked me about Bryce. Why was I so crazy about Bryce?
I told him about his eyes and his hair and the way his cheeks blush, but I don't think I explained it very well because when I was done Dad shook his head and told me in soft, heavy words that I needed to start looking at the whole landscape.
I didn't really know what he meant by that, but it made me want to argue with him. How could he possibly understand about Bryce? He didn't know him!
But this was not an arguing spot. Those were scattered throughout the house, but not out here.
We were both quiet for a record-breaking amount of time before he kissed me on the forehead and said, "Proper lighting is everything, Julianna."
Proper lighting? What was that supposed to mean? I sat there wondering, but I was afraid that by asking I'd be admitting that I wasn't mature enough to understand, and for some reason it felt obvious. Like I should understand.
After that he didn't talk so much about events as he did about ideas. And the older I got, the more philosophical he seemed to get. I don't know if he really got more philosophical or if he just thought I could handle it now that I was in the double digits.
Mostly the things he talked about floated around me, but once in a while something would happen and I would understand exactly what he had meant. "A painting is more than the sum of its parts," he would tell me, and then go on to explain how the cow by itself is just a cow, and the meadow by itself is just grass and flowers, and the sun peeking through the trees is just a beam of light, but put them all together and you've got magic.
I understood what he was saying, but I never felt what he was saying until one day when I was up in the sycamore tree.
The sycamore tree had been at the top of the hill forever. It was on a big vacant lot, giving shade in the summer and a place for birds to nest in the spring. It had a built-in slide for us, too. Its trunk bent up and around in almost a complete spiral, and it was so much fun to ride down. My mom told me she thought the tree must have been damaged as a sapling but survived, and now, maybe a hundred years later, it was still there, the biggest tree she'd ever seen. "A testimony to endurance" is what she called it.
I had always played in the tree, but I didn't become a serious climber until the fifth grade, when I went up to rescue a kite that was stuck in its branches. I'd first spotted the kite floating free through the air and then saw it dive-bomb somewhere up the hill by the sycamore tree.
I've flown kites before and I know — sometimes they're gone forever, and sometimes they're just waiting in the middle of the road for you to rescue them. Kites can be lucky or they can be ornery. I've had both kinds, and a lucky kite is definitely worth chasing after.
This kite looked lucky to me. It wasn't anything fancy, just an old-fashioned diamond with blue and yellow stripes. But it stuttered along in a friendly way, and when it dive-bombed, it seemed to do so from exhaustion as opposed to spite. Ornery kites dive-bomb out of spite. They never get exhausted because they won't stay up long enough to poop out. Thirty feet up they just sort of smirk at you and crash for the fun of it.
So Champ and I ran up to Collier Street, and after scouting out the road, Champ started barking at the sycamore tree. I looked up and spotted it, too, flashing blue and yellow through the branches.
It was a long ways up, but I thought I'd give it a shot. I shinnied up the trunk, took a shortcut across the slide, and started climbing. Champ kept a good eye on me, barking me along, and soon I was higher than I'd ever been. But still the kite seemed forever away.
Then below me I noticed Bryce coming around the corner and through the vacant lot. And I could tell from the way he was looking up that this was his kite.
What a lucky, lucky kite this was turning out to be!
"Can you climb that high?" he called up to me.
"Sure!" I called back. And up, up, up I went!
The branches were strong, with just the right amount of intersections to make climbing easy. And the higher I got, the more amazed I was by the view. I'd never seen a view like that! It was like being in an airplane above all the rooftops, above the other trees. Above the world!
Then I looked down. Down at Bryce. And suddenly I got dizzy and weak in the knees. I was miles off the ground! Bryce shouted, "Can you reach it?"
I caught my breath and managed to call down, "No problem!" then forced myself to concentrate on those blue and yellow stripes, to focus on them and only them as I shinnied up, up, up. Finally I touched it; I grasped it; I had the kite in my hand!
But the string was tangled in the branches above and I couldn't seem to pull it free. Bryce called, "Break the string!" and somehow I managed to do just that.
When I had the kite free, I needed a minute to rest. To recover before starting down. So instead of looking at the ground below me, I held on tight and looked out. Out across the rooftops.
That's when the fear of being up so high began to lift, and in its place came the most amazing feeling that I was flying. Just soaring above the earth, sailing among the clouds.
Then I began to notice how wonderful the breeze smelled. It smelled like ... sunshine. Like sunshine and wild grass and pomegranates and rain! I couldn't stop breathing it in, filling my lungs again and again with the sweetest smell I'd ever known.
Bryce called up, "Are you stuck?" which brought me down to earth. Carefully I backed up, prized stripes in hand, and as I worked my way down, I could see Bryce circling the tree, watching me to make sure I was okay.
By the time I hit the slide, the heady feeling I'd had in the tree was changing into the heady realization that Bryce and I were alone.
Alone!
My heart was positively racing as I held the kite out to him. But before he could take it, Champ nudged me from behind and I could feel his cold, wet nose against my skin.
Against my skin? !
I grabbed my jeans in back, and that's when I realized the seat of my pants was ripped wide open.
Bryce laughed a little nervous laugh, so I could tell he knew, and for once mine were the cheeks that were beet red. He took his kite and ran off, leaving me to inspect the damage.
I did eventually get over the embarrassment of my jeans, but I never got over the view. I kept thinking of what it felt like to be up so high in that tree. I wanted to see it, to feel it, again. And again.
It wasn't long before I wasn't afraid of being up so high and found the spot that became my spot. I could sit there for hours, just looking out at the world. Sunsets were amazing. Some days they'd be purple and pink, some days they'd be a blazing orange, setting fire to clouds across the horizon.
It was on a day like that when my father's notion of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts moved from my head to my heart. The view from my sycamore was more than rooftops and clouds and wind and colors combined.
It was magic.
And I started marveling at how I was feeling both humble and majestic. How was that possible? How could I be so full of peace and full of wonder? How could this simple tree make me feel so complex? So alive.
I went up the tree every chance I got. And in junior high that became almost every day because the bus to our school picks up on Collier Street, right in front of the sycamore tree.
At first I just wanted to see how high I could get before the bus pulled up, but before long I was leaving the house early so I could get clear up to my spot to see the sun rise, or the birds flutter about, or just the other kids converge on the curb.
I tried to convince the kids at the bus stop to climb up with me, even a little ways, but all of them said they didn't want to get dirty. Turn down a chance to feel magic for fear of a little dirt? I couldn't believe it.
I'd never told my mother about climbing the tree. Being the truly sensible adult that she is, she would have told me it was too dangerous. My brothers, being brothers, wouldn't have cared.
That left my father. The one person I knew would understand. Still, I was afraid to tell him. He'd tell my mother and pretty soon they'd insist that I stop. So I kept quiet, kept climbing, and felt a somewhat lonely joy as I looked out over the world.
Then a few months ago I found myself talking to the tree. An entire conversation, just me and a tree. And on the climb down I felt like crying. Why didn't I have someone real to talk to? Why didn't I have a best friend like everyone else seemed to? Sure, there were kids I knew at school, but none of them were close friends. They'd have no interest in climbing the tree. In smelling the sunshine.
That night after dinner my father went outside to paint. In the cold of the night, under the glare of the porch light, he went out to put the finishing touches on a sunrise he'd been working on.
I got my jacket and went out to sit beside him, quiet as a mouse.
After a few minutes he said, "What's on your mind, sweetheart?"
In all the times I'd sat out there with him, he'd never asked me that. I looked at him but couldn't seem to speak.
He mixed two hues of orange together, and very softly he said, "Talk to me."
I sighed so heavily it surprised even me. "I understand why you come out here, Dad."
He tried kidding me. "Would you mind explaining it to your mother?"
"Really, Dad. I understand now about the whole being greater than the sum of the parts."
He stopped mixing. "You do? What happened? Tell me about it!"
So I told him about the sycamore tree. About the view and the sounds and the colors and the wind, and how being up so high felt like flying. Felt like magic.
He didn't interrupt me once, and when my confession was through, I looked at him and whispered, "Would you climb up there with me?"
He thought about this a long time, then smiled and said, "I'm not much of a climber anymore, Julianna, but I'll give it a shot, sure. How about this weekend, when we've got lots of daylight to work with?"
"Great!"
I went to bed so excited that I don't think I slept more than five minutes the whole night. Saturday was right around the corner. I couldn't wait!
The next morning I raced to the bus stop extra early and climbed the tree. I caught the sun rising through the clouds, sending streaks of fire from one end of the world to the other. And I was in the middle of making a mental list of all the things I was going to show my father when I heard a noise below.
I looked down, and parked right beneath me were two trucks. Big trucks. One of them was towing a long, empty trailer, and the other had a cherry picker on it — the kind they use to work on overhead power lines and telephone poles.
There were four men standing around talking, drinking from thermoses, and I almost called down to them, "I'm sorry, but you can't park there... That's a bus stop!" But before I could, one of the men reached into the back of a truck and started unloading tools. Gloves. Ropes. A chain. Earmuffs. And then chain saws. Three chain saws.
And still I didn't get it. I kept looking around for what it was they could possibly be there to cut down. Then one of the kids who rides the bus showed up and started talking to them, and pretty soon he was pointing up at me.
One of the men called, "Hey! You better come down from there. We gotta take this thing down."
I held on to the branch tight, because suddenly it felt as though I might fall. I managed to choke out, "The tree?"
"Yeah, now come on down."
"But who told you to cut it down?"
"The owner!" he called back.
"But why?"
Even from forty feet up I could see him scowl. "Because he's gonna build himself a house, and he can't very well do that with this tree in the way. Now come on, girl, we've got work to do!"
By that time most of the kids had gathered for the bus. They weren't saying anything to me, just looking up at me and turning from time to time to talk to each other. Then Bryce appeared, so I knew the bus was about to arrive. I searched across the rooftops and sure enough, there it was, less than four blocks away.
My heart was crazy with panic. I didn't know what to do! I couldn't leave and let them cut down the tree! I cried, "You can't cut it down! You just can't!"
One of the men shook his head and said, "I am this close to calling the police. You are trespassing and obstructing progress on a contracted job. Now are you going to come down or are we going to cut you down?"
The bus was three blocks away. I'd never missed school for any reason other than legitimate illness, but I knew in my heart that I was going to miss my ride. "You're going to have to cut me down!" I yelled. Then I had an idea. They'd never cut it down if all of us were in the tree. They'd have to listen! "Hey, guys!" I called to my classmates. "Get up here with me! They can't cut it down if we're all up here! Marcia! Tony! Bryce! C'mon, you guys, don't let them do this!"
They just stood there, staring up at me.
I could see the bus, one block away. "Come on, you guys! You don't have to come up this high. Just a little ways. Please!"
The bus blasted up and pulled to the curb in front of the trucks, and when the doors folded open, one by one my classmates climbed on board.
What happened after that is a bit of a blur. I remember the neighbors gathering, and the police with megaphones. I remember the fire brigade, and some guy saying it was his blasted tree and I'd darn well better get out of it.
Somebody tracked down my mother, who cried and pleaded and acted not at all the way a sensible mother should, but I was not coming down. I was not coming down.
Then my father came racing up. He jumped out of his pickup truck, and after talking with my mother for a few minutes, he got the guy in the cherry picker to give him a lift up to where I was. After that it was all over. I started crying and tried to get him to look out over the rooftops, but he wouldn't. He said that no view was worth his little girl's safety.
He got me down and he took me home, only I couldn't stay there. I couldn't stand the sound of chain saws in the distance.
So Dad took me with him to work, and while he put up a block wall, I sat in his truck and cried.
I must've cried for two weeks straight. Oh, sure, I went to school and I functioned the best I could, but I didn't go there on the bus. I started riding my bike instead, taking the long way so I wouldn't have to go up to Collier Street. Up to a pile of sawdust that used to be the earth's most magnificent sycamore tree.
Then one evening when I was locked up in my room, my father came in with something under a towel. I could tell it was a painting because that's how he transports the important ones when he shows them in the park. He sat down, resting the painting on the floor in front of him. "I always liked that tree of yours," he said. "Even before you told me about it."
"Oh, Dad, it's okay. I'll get over it."
"No, Julianna. No, you won't."
I started crying. "It was just a tree..."
"I never want you to convince yourself of that. You and I both know it isn't true."
"But Dad..."
"Bear with me a minute, would you?" He took a deep breath. "I want the spirit of that tree to be with you always. I want you to remember how you felt when you were up there." He hesitated a moment, then handed me the painting. "So I made this for you."
I pulled off the towel, and there was my tree. My beautiful, majestic sycamore tree. Through the branches he'd painted the fire of sunrise, and it seemed to me I could feel the wind. And way up in the tree was a tiny girl looking off into the distance, her cheeks flushed with wind. With joy. With magic.
"Don't cry, Julianna. I want it to help you, not hurt you."
I wiped the tears from my cheeks and gave a mighty sniff. "Thank you, Daddy," I choked out. "Thank you."
I hung the painting across the room from my bed. It's the first thing I see every morning and the last thing I see every night. And now that I can look at it without crying, I see more than the tree and what being up in its branches meant to me.
I see the day that my view of things around me started changing.