DAY 248
12.08.07
TREE 172
I went to the Mary Anderson Center for a little ceramic glazing, the art opening, and a classical guitar concert. But hunger trumped the music and I went to La Rosita’s with Norm, Jennifer, Sarah, Sebastian, Fong, and others. It was a nice meal but went long and I started to get really nervous about climbing. The whole day had been wet, cold, and miserable. Now it was wet, cold, dark, and miserable. But I had a plan. I was picking up Will to go to Puckett’s birthday party. We would figure out where it was then I would climb a tree nearby. It was near Tom Sawyer Park so that was settled. We drove there and Will mentioned something about the park being closed. Well, not only was it closed but a cop was sitting right in front of the tree I was planning to climb. So I drove on. I went to the party house but we were way early so we drove around. I ended up at the Oxmoor Mall and saw some decent trees just off the parking lot. I drove around the lot to make my choice and picked one by Macy’s.
Will stayed in the truck while I did my thing. The tree wasn’t too big and the entry was easy. Even though it was around 10:30pm there was ample light from all the buildings and street lamps.
The tree was pretty wet but not too slippery.
It was enough to get my hands dirty but not enough to have to go really slowly. I got to my high point and tied my ribbon. Then I took one shot looking up and the sky looked a strange, yellowy-orangish grey from all the light pollution.
You could hardly call it night. There were even shadows of the tree cast onto the pavement. I got pictures of the mall and surroundings, and my truck below.
I was just relieved to have finally climbed a tree.
I was so nervous and had waited too long. I climbed back down and we headed back to the party. We parked in front of the house then decided to wait before we went in because nobody else was there yet. We thought we’d wait for Puckett since he is the only one we know. The windows of the truck started to fog up. Of the two cars that showed up for the party, neither of us could tell if it was Puckett. So we waited for more than a half hour and finally decided just to leave. We both just felt so uncomfortable at the idea of attending a party, and such a small and intimate one, without knowing more than one person there. What a strange night. The climb was nothing spectacular, but a climb nonetheless.
12-10-08: That was one of my most anti-social things I had ever done. I was pumping myself up for this party all day then I allowed my insecurities control me. I am shy but I think Will is even worse. He was only going because I wanted to go. As we sat inmy fogged up truck we laughed and increasingly felt more and more uncomfortable. It’s like we were feeding off each others desire to just leave and stay in our comfort zone. We had even stopped at a gas station to get gifts and wrapped them in Auto Trader paper. A few days later we had our own party and gave the gifts away as prizes since they weren’t personal or anything. I mean we got them at a gas station. Anyway, I am never doing that again. If I show up at a party I am just going to go in.
Last Sunday I planned to go to my parents’ place to do laundry and have dinner with my mom. I bummed around my own house for most of the day and didn’t end up leaving till around 5. I decided I would stop at Cox’s park on the way to my parents to climb a tree. I parked where I had met up with Tim a few weeks prior to slack line.
As walked around the pond I noticed this collection of tall trees in the distance by another parking lot.
It called to me and I went straight for them.
When I got to them I studied them closely for which way I want to get started. There were quite a few and I was trying to figure out if there was a way to climb more than one. The majority of the limbs didn’t start till well up the trunks so I knew I was going to have to shimmy. I finally picked my tree and stepped up in between two trunks. I used the closeness of these two trunks to wiggle my way up a few feet then latched on to the one I wanted to climb and started to shimmy up. This was one of the longest shimmies I have ever done. What helped me to reach the first limb without failing was the nice rough hackberry bark and my ability to calm myself. Usually I get up really high and start to panic that my arms or legs will give out from the effort and I will fall. On this tree I just took my time, reminded myself that I had the strength to make it all the way and I never panicked. When I finally did reach the first branch and climbed up to my feet I had become quite warm and needed to take off my big hat. I stuck it on a limb then continued higher. As with many trees in a bunch there are only branches growing out towards the light and not in towards the other trees. On the one hand that makes less branches for me to climb, but on the other it allows for one clear side to shimmy easily high in a tree. I kept pushing myself past some difficult spots and made it very high. There was a woman with a black dog, possibly the same woman who walked her dog by Tim, Norman, and I the last time I was at this park. She paused a while and watched. I couldn’t tell if she was amused or concerned. There were others there who were jogging or walking but seemed to just ignore me.
I got a nice seat in the branches and started to take pictures. The distant sunset was really quite nice.
I also tried to get a good picture of my hat below me.
Then after I took a bunch more shots of all my surroundings I put my camera away a sat just a little while longer.
This was a really good challenging tree and a beautiful evening. But I needed to get home to get stuff done so I get get back to Louisville and get to bed. I climbed down sliding mostly the whole way down the trunk. when I reached the ground my black ski pants were all dusty white and green on the insides of my legs. I was really warm and satisfied with my climb and I walked back to my truck with a smile as I stared at the colorful sky.
As I drove out of the park and went east down River Road I looked in my rearview mirror and saw that the sun had dipped below the clouds and was just above the downtown skyline. It was an enormous bright pink orb. I couldn’t believe I had missed that. And there was no way I could capture it while driving away from it. It is just one of those things I was going to have to try to enjoy for just a moment as I drove away.