the tree life

Today I climbed a tree. I can't remember the last time that I did that. It wasn't a big one by any means and while I didn't climb very high at all, as I hoisted myself up on that first branch I felt suddenly free. I had liberated myself from the earth, if only by climbing upon an extension of it, for what are trees, after all, if not an extension of mother earth? As I sat perched in its newly budded boughs I felt that all was right with the world. The air seemed cleaner, the breeze more refreshing, the view more pleasant. I felt as if the world and I were friends again.

Perhaps deep inside of myself somewhere I remembered that this is how it feels to climb a tree and that is why for several years now I have been hankering after a tree house. Not just a play tree house, but a real one. One to live in. And I've found that I'm not alone. There are all kinds of people who aspire to live in the trees, from basic one-tree tree houses to spherical pods that hang suspended between many trees at once. There is something about that Swiss-Family-Robinson-type existence that seems so natural and yet magical all at once. When you view life from above you would think that it would seem even more insignificant and small, but instead the opposite is true. Everything seems to have more purpose and more meaning and more significance. And this is why we should never stop climbing trees, if only in our hearts.