Shannanigan's Search for More...

I step with caution, listening after each placement of my foot on the damp, soft earth for other nearby footsteps. To hear some may mean I am being followed, but so far, only the hardly audible sounds of my socks sinking into the thick dirt and my arms parting the tall, thick blades of grass around me have pierced the silence.

I continue forward, suddenly unsure of what exactly I am doing here. What am I looking for? Why am I worried that I am being followed? Where did I just come from?

Slowly, large branches covered with leaves begin to appear overhead as I move through the unkempt grass. I follow the branches as they get thicker and thicker, going from the width of my arm to the width of the trunks of some trees I used to climb. With another pass of my hand along the tall grass, I suddenly see the large trunk through the last of the blades. They are the last, because this tree is the end of my journey.

I look at it, stare up at how high up the branches start. There is no hope of climbing this tree without some kind of tool, and I can't wrap my arms around the trunk. I feel a wave of deja vu, but can't figure out why.

Then it hits me.

The bark, the bark is so familiar. That brown-grey color that used to slide roughly against my fingertips and palms...this is the tree that used to be in my front yard. I used to conquer it each weekend and then indulge in the rewards of a quiet place to sit and observe the world as it bustled below me. The grass, no one has cut it in years, and the tree has grown so large without me. How long have I been gone?

I fall. There was no hole, but I am falling, hitting my bed, surely jerking myself out of...yes, a dream. A dream to remind me that there was something I had neglected. A reminder to revisit sometimes.

So I write again, just as I used to do in my tree-climbing days...