There’s this perfect spot to read, right outside my house. It’s on the far side, where no one ever goes except myself. It can hardly be seen around the corner and the bushes, but from it you can see everything. I can see the street and my front yard. I can see the neighbor’s front yard and both of our back yards. I can see through to the entrance of the neighborhood park on the other side. I was reading there one day last week. It was the perfect time, place, mood, air, anything that can be perfect for reading— it was. I had been desperate to read and was rereading Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, though I don’t know why I’m sharing that detail, it has little to do with the point of why I’m writing this right now. Anyways, I was reading, entirely calm in my reading, and I kept getting distracted by the beauty of where I was and the entire feel of being there reading right then. It was like the book almost didn’t matter in the slightest. It was like I had chosen the spot perfectly and being right there right then was the only thing that mattered and as long as I kept reading, it would stay perfect and the world would stay perfect.

Just behind my neighbor’s house there is a tree. It’s a big tree. I don’t know what kind, I’ve never been able to tell trees apart and quite honestly, it’s not a skill I aspire to have. Anyways, this tree is big. It is tall with wide branches reaching to the sky. And leaves. So many leaves. And from my spot in that old discarded chair outside my house, I can just see the top half of this tree over the roof of my neighbor’s house. I see where its branches meet the sky, touching the clouds. As I was sitting there, reading and being overwhelmed by the incredible comfort that the simplicity of my location offered me, I looked up at the tree and found myself wondering. There are so many leaves. I felt so overwhelmed that I could almost feel them moving as I watched each leave move in the wind. At first I wondered, “how does each leaf know that it is part of the entire tree? Does each leaf think for itself as each moves independently in the wind or do they all think as one, as the tree?”

I tried to keep reading— it was, after all, the perfect time and place to be doing so— but I couldn’t stop being distracted by this tree. First, it was beautiful; tall and strong, green, reaching into the sky, teasing me with its illusion of being able to touch the clouds. And second, why are those leaves waving at me so? Do they have something to say? They can’t possibly all be thinking as that tree. Each one moves separately in the wind. Come fall, each will change color and depart from the tree separately. No, I don’t believe that they could all possibly think the same thing if they are to be thinking something, which I’m sure they are. They must have their own thoughts. If they could tell me, would they? Are they trying to? There are so many leaves on that tree and I found myself looking at individual ones and wondering with everything I had what it might have to say if it had the chance. And then it came to me that perhaps each leaf does have its own thought but is entirely aware that it is also part of the beauty of the whole tree?

What if the tree is a living puzzle? Each leaf is important, beautiful, and unique; yet they come together, connect, and make the tree whole. So then, perhaps each leaf has its own thought to share with me, but as a whole the tree is trying to communicate with me one idea, one concept. That idea seemed easier for me to wrap my head around as I gazed at that tree trying to figure out what it would say to me, if only it could. And I didn’t know why it mattered because as disappointing as it is, I’ll never be able to speak tree; but I still couldn’t stop getting distracted from my reading by this tree and every leaf that shook in the wind. I wanted to know what the puzzle pieces came together to say. And I wanted to see into every piece that went into it. So I read and I watched the leaves until the sky grew too dark to do either. Then I went inside, turned on all the lights in my bedroom, and went right back outside to read in the light of my window. The tree now looked solid, and if not for the rustling, I’d be fooled into thinking it was still. My mind wondering, however, is not still. I want to know what this tree and every leaf would say to me if they could.

It’s probably crazy— as crazy as, if not far crazier, than my dream of touching a cloud. I don’t care, though. That place, that time, reading, that tree, it was all perfect and overwhelmingly so. So much that every thought I had while there felt alive, like if I planted them around me, by morning I’d have trees as large and beautiful as the one that filled my my mind and stole my attention. It’s not even to say I had grand thoughts or ideas, it was just the calm aliveness that the overwhelming contentedness of where I was injected into every simple thought until it felt more alive than any other time I’d dared to have the same thought. I thought, “that garden is beautiful,” and the thought refused to stay just that, a thought, and instead turned itself to feeling and I felt the beauty of the garden until I couldn’t remember what it was I had originally thought. I thought, “”how does each leaf know that it is part of the entire tree? Does each leaf think for itself as each moves independently in the wind or do they all think as one, as the tree?” and found myself feeling the connection of the puzzle and the strength of the branches and the emotion of every leaf as it danced. I stopped thinking logically about the tree and the leaves and just felt its presence and wanted to get closer to it in this alive place in my head until I could know everything it had to say.

And then it got cold and even though I hated doing it and waited as long as I could, I left my place outside to go inside to bed. I did it though, knowing that I would never forget that tree or that place or that time. I left knowing that I had to write about that tree. I had to write about it because even though I’ll never know what it has to say, I felt so close to it in that night that I know whatever it is, it doesn’t deserve to be forgotten. I never want that tree to be forgotten. If I write about it even a little bit, it won’t be. Even if no one ever reads this, even if I’m the only one that ever remembers a thing about it or understands how it felt or wonders anything about it at all,  that tree was special. It is special. I am very happy that I can see it from that spot of mine. I look forward to seeing it sometime soon, and feeling as alive and calm as I did that day.