Prologue:
I’m perched high in the branches of the red cedar across the street from my childhood home. I have a book, Warrior Cats, and a water bottle, and I feel like I could stay here forever. In my head, I’ve already devised a rope harness system so I don’t fall out as I sleep. I can hear the other kids playing down on the street. They’re welcome to join me, but none of them would dare climb this high. But then I hear my father yell my name.
“Get down right now, but very carefully,” he says.
I knew this warning was coming as soon as he realized where I was.
“I’m not saying you have to get out of the tree,” he reasons. “I’m just telling you to come down a little lower.”
There is a particular feeling I get while resting up in a tall tree: It’s this sense of stability, a sense of slowing down in all of the hectic goings-on. When I come down, it isn’t quite the same.