The best childhoods are spent in trees.
My childhood was spent in the perfect magnolia tree. Conveniently located in my backyard. Magnolias aren't just for climbing. Their branches, guaranteed to be in absolute abundance, are to be lived in. I knew which branches to stand on and which to balance against, which to swing from, and which made the best shelves for whatever I happened to have toted into its throngs. I'd chosen the wrong branch to stand on the day I fell. I was eating an apple when the branch snapped. I saw it fly from my hand and follow me to the ground. My arms seemed to have minds of their own, attempting to grasp something, someone; a branch, Elizabeth, but to no avail. Elizabeth, my best friend, moved automatically. She'd been climbing and eating an apple just above me in the tree, I can still see her scrambling down faster than I fell. Though I know that isn't true. My arms reaching out for her just as much as - if not more than - they were reaching for a branch. Anything to prevent the inevitable. When I reached the ground, I landed flat on my back, the wind knocked straight out of me. The pain from the impact was tremendous. In writing this, I'm reminded of the sensation that haunted me for years. Until it didn't. I'm not sure when, but at some point, I stopped thinking about the pain. The story became one of triumph, animated over years of recollection. Parts elaborated, others forgotten. It's astonishing that I wasn't injured, or killed, by the impact.
Some hours or days later, my mother climbed the tree to measure the height of the broken branch. It was 21.5 feet above the ground. That's 6.5 meters.
That's what I remember.
The apple, Elizabeth's reaction, and the absolute shock of sudden, hard ground beneath me. The last branch - long, horizontal, and helpful though it was, was still well above both of our heads. Elizabeth leapt, took one look at me, fear flooded her eyes, and said she would find help. Elizabeth, my own personal doctor in every and any other situation, knew I was beyond her aid. She returned with my father to find me writhing and moaning on the ground. Seeing that I wouldn't be settled, he carefully carried me into the house and laid me on the couch, which is where we waited for the nurses to arrive. They asked, as he had done, what hurt. Everything hurt. I fell from the tree, didn't they know? But it was determined that I would be fine. So we waited. I don't know when I climbed the tree again. The next day or week? All I know is, though the pain would haunt me for years to come, it would not keep me from my home in the trees. I was a kid after all, and the best childhoods are spent in trees.
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