Week Four : Childhood Memoir

I woke up to the distant humming of trucks and tractors. Being so used to only sleeping to the sounds of crickets and frogs, these loud mechanical noises were foreign for me to hear this time of morning. 

I uncurled myself from the fetal position I was sleeping in and leaned to look out the window. 

In the earliest moments of day, it seems like everything in the world is impossibly still. This particular morning, the sky was a few shades of a light blue and purple. You could see behind the pines where the sun was starting to rise. 

My dirt driveway was mangled with large tire tracks. It was then that I remembered why I heard those loud trucks. This morning was when the cutting started. 

Living on 96 acres of forest, my life has always been surrounded by trees. Recently, my dad was given an offer by a local logging company for them to come and clear out some of the trees in my backyard. 

The loud noises of the trucks continued and I quietly stood up. I tip-toed downstairs, wary not to wake Cindy. 

No one was awake yet. It was a little past 5 in the morning. Everything was quiet in the house, except for a few croaks and moans coming from the old beams. I grabbed a blanket off the couch, careful to avoid the sleeping dog, and walked barefoot onto the front porch. 

The air this Indian summer morning was a crisp surprise. I wrapped the blanket around my arms and followed the noises of the working trucks. I walked across the cold, dew-covered grass and sat on the picnic table in my yard. 

From this spot, I could see many of the trucks working on cutting down the trees. I could hear the beeps, the wheels turning, the chains rattling. It was loud and I didn't understand how anyone in the house could sleep. 

When Dad first announced that this cutting was going on, I was angry with him. How could he cut those trees? Those trees that have harbored so many memories. The trees I climb are being cut. At the time I didn't realize that Dad was getting a lot of money for doing this, and he was doing it for his family. 

As a kid I curled up and sat and wondered. I thought about how different my backyard would look without trees. How different my life would look without trees. For me, it was all I had ever known. The thought of being without it... was scary. 

So here, first thing in the morning as the sun was rising, I watched as trees were taken from my home. In a lot of ways, the weird feeling in the pit of my stomach was much more then just losing trees. I can't say goodbye to something that seems literally to have grown to be apart of me. It was an emptiness that I couldn't explain. 

A couple weeks later, I was sitting outside of my dad. We were looking out to the field that used to be a forest. In the middle of the field were a few tall and full maple trees. One of those trees became my favorite place. If you sat at the bottom of the tree, you could see almost every inch of the sky. 

My dad told me that he kept those trees there because him and Grampy used to tap those specific trees for maple syrup. I may never have found them if the other trees were cleared. That place became a place I went whenever I had to think. I'd sit at the bottom of the tree and work everything out in my head. It seemed to be the only place that was only mine. 

I think I learned early in life that things are constantly changing. I tried to fight change. I didn't want change. I wanted things to stay the same. But sometimes, just sometimes, change is the best thing.