The only trees I knew growing up were carefully protected by cement and pretty linked fences and rules about not touching them. Most of them were tall.
Since they weren't something to play with, who the hell cared. They were just there and all the old ladies sat under them kvetching and gossiping.
And yeah, the trees filling the Men's Park let me know the time of season and when summer was coming and when summer was leaving but they were more like a clock.
No, the forests I looked out upon were not grown from things. They were made of things . They were the Con Edison smokestacks up on 14th. They were the water towers of the old buildings my parents had struggled to get out of into better housing. They were as normal as the sound of the subway They were my forest and my view.
They were my nature.
I still don't get trees. I mean, I like them and everything. They're nice to sit under and nice to walk under. They are very, very pretty to look at. But if you ask me to take out my camera and take a picture of one that tells its story, I'm lost.
No. What makes me whip out my camera in delight and awe and repeatedly look at the horizon in wonderment is steel and smoke and wood holding water and the millions of stories I told myself all the years I've stared out on them.
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Related Posts:
Sunday Memories: The Men's Park
Going Up the Country Got to Get Away
A Car Ride to the Doctor
You Got Your North Star, I Got Mine
In Memory of Cindy: The Land of the Quartchyard
Sunday Memories of Winter
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