Oh, how I have always wanted a treehouse. My father, each year that I questioned him about it, told me that he was going to build me one. However, as time flew by...I was left without my little bungalow. I used to try to build rickety hideaways by myself, but it never quite worked out. I am not a builder.
But, to me, there is something very comforting about trees...I can only imagine how being high up in one, peering down upon the world feels. I've never flown in a plane..well, I've hardly ever been anywhere in my life, but I may presume that it is a similar feeling of being high above the ground's happenings. A feeling of disconnectedness from the world - or rather, a supreme being in the sky looking down upon the earth created.
Some trees have grown from the earth for hundreds of years. Think of all of the things they've seen from their solitary positions. Highest branches yearning for the sky, they can see for miles around. The eyes and ears of the world. But, oh, how depressing it must be to be a tree. Unable to walk the earth and embrace the vastness of it all.
Such is the sadness in the fairy-tale, The Fir Tree by Hans Christian Andersen. The small fir-tree is personified into a living entity. It longs to be as tall and as beautiful as the other trees around. These trees keep getting cut down and sailed away to far away lands, while the tree remains small and pathetic, wondering just what the sea looks like - for he is too short to see. Eventually, the fir tree is cut down and taken to a home as a Christmas tree...and the journey there was not at all what he had expected. The only time the beauty of nature was comparable was while the little fir tree was being adorned with Christmas decorations. However, once Christmas came to a sad end, the fir tree was thrown into a dark attic...and months later dragged out into the sunlight to be discarded. His life ends as he views the flitting life of spring colorfully blossoming around him.
We all long to travel the world, see exotic things and have new experiences. It is human nature. However, we must not get too anxious as the young fir tree did and miss the wonderful journey along the way. Do not long for something that dilutes life in the meantime. Nothing is worth that much of one's time. Nothing is worth the wonderfulness of the everyday intricacies in your surroundings. Talks with friends, days at work, even begrudgingly avoiding my homework is all of importance to me. Although I long for college, as the fir tree longed for the sea, I will not miss out on life's experiences until that point in life comes.......which is June 27th :)
3 comments:
Didn't have a treehouse but some of my favorite childhood memories are of nestling into the upper branches of a 75-foot pine in the cemetery across the street from my home. Covered with pitch when I descended and had to undergo some harsh clean-up rituals-- a small price to be on top of the world.
That's quite some tree huse. My children had one, not nearly as ornametal as that, but very functional in the large weeping willow tree that we used to have in our garden. All the local children would come to play in it.
I always wanted a treehouse when I was younger. Sad, I had no trees in my yard....lol. So, we would climb as high as we could and pretend that we had a clubhouse in the sky.
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