I took the puppy and Huck out on a little walk Emma showed us, on a secret street that's not near any new studio being built or any couches abandoned on the side of the road. It's just one block up and one long block over, but it's a wide street like the first smile of a kid who just got her braces off.
Anyway I can barely walk on my heel because of some curse of the god plantar fasciitis but the weather is nice from strange rain in August and there is no one on the street until you look up.
I met some friends on this street. The hugest, bushiest, most serious trees just standing there, growing. You can go see them right now, there's no line or anything. In fact people seem to just be ignoring them. I only had the dogs who were happy exploring the ground floor and I wasn't hooked up to any listening wires threaded on my body I was just flush all myself on a sore foot in the quiet wide river street and suddenly now I have all these new friends.
They aren't saying anything but they are so happy to see you. They're so self assuredly solid. They tell you to hold you head up high because the sky is a nice place to gaze. They have been here all along, they say. Where you been
I think the biggest one is pine, and he has a trunk like your fatter gramma the one you liked better because she was more substantial to hug. Also she hummed when she cooked and always sat as long as you wanted to talk, moving your bangs out of your eyes occasionally. This tree isn't going anywhere and he wants you to know it. His branches are outlandish pirate mustaches.
Then on the other side is another permed explosion of a tree, I feel like I'm at a fireworks show. I never saw any of these guys, I rarely came on this street in 20 years, only by accident maybe following one of the kids on a wobbly bike, or later teaching one of the same kids to drive.
Now just me, limping, dogs, and the surprise of trees.
I feel like a dot in the world.
What I like most about making friends with trees is all you do is show up. Look up at them and they say yes
come back tomorrow
