DAY 195
10.16.07
TREE 117
I waited again, but this time it was for someone to show up to the house. Emily Butler, the woman taking my job here at MACA, was supposed to arrive this afternoon. She was going to need help bringing stuff in so I waited and waited, and it wasn’t until dark when I got her email and voicemail messages saying she wasn’t leaving till tomorrow. Frustrated, I got in my truck hungry and wanting to climb. I drove to Seneca Park and parked near the Willis Ave./Cannons Lane intersection. For being mid-October it is still crazy warm. Especially for night time. The path at the park was busy with evening walkers and joggers. I walked along side the path eyeing the trees. Now that I have started trying to identify tree types I have this desire to climb as many different kinds as I can. I came to this one tree right next to the side walk by a street lamp and saw it had small symmetrical growing leaves with bunches of seeds.
The trunk had a good lean to it but still to steep to run up. The branches were also pretty high for me to get to but looked strong. A couple limbs bent down to where I could grab them. I tested the strength of one and it was sturdy so I climbed up. In the dark I had to be careful and test the limbs just in case they were dead. I climbed up one main artery then switched to another.
There was enough light that I could see a better path to the top. But one section was tough. I had to hold onto one limb with both hands and let my body hang out over the ground thirty or so feet below. I got up, no problem. I wasn’t even scared, just hyper-focused.
I took some good long exposure shots and sat and enjoyed the view and the solitude.
Another strange day. Lost is getting to my head. I climbed down easy and tried to wait to jump down so no one saw me, but two walkers did. They didn’t say anything.
10-16-08: Last night was crazy warm too. And the mosquitoes are going nuts. I do like the warm weather but I am kinda ready for the cool fall weather to make the insects disappear. I went up to the knobs the other day and saw that the trees were starting to change there. Just like I remember last year… just miles away the trees start to change color about 2 weeks ahead of Louisville. Strange.
I am not sure if you have experienced this situation: you watch a TV show on DVD or streaming online for hours in a day, then spend the time you aren’t watching the show thinking about it. Lost is one show that is particularly adept at sticking in my mind. That moment in the entry where I mention the show is my way of telling you that when I was “enjoying my view” up in the tree, I was actually thinking about Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hugo, Charlie, Locke, and all the other characters that I was spending more time with than real people.
Yesterday I went out to U of L for Parkour. My back is still not better and got a little sore last night. I waited to climb until we were done and chose not to climb on campus. I wanted a new location. I started to bike away from campus and quickly came to DuPont Manual High School. The fences to the parking lot were open and there were still some cars parked in the lot. I biked in and locked my bike to a hand rail. I walked slowly and silently looking around for any security or just anyone. No one was around and I was free to select a tree. I chose an oak tree next the south end of the building along a line of trees. The trunk split low into two major trunks but also had a smaller third branch that came out at the same point. If you turned the tree up-side down it might look like two legs with a large penis. A penis with limbs coming off of it….
I grabbed the tree’s pointy phallus and crawled up pressing my feet against the tree’s legs. When I reached a branch strong enough to hold my weight I rotated to the top of the branch and transferred into one of the larger legs. This type of oak has a crowded mess of branches and made it difficult to slither through without getting poked all over. I like it, however, because it is like a fun puzzle to solve… get through the maze.
I struggled to the top and got comfortable for pictures. I was really hoping I was going to be able to see a lot from my high position but I was disappointed. I was also having trouble getting clear shots as the wind blew me around in the branches.
(Ahhhhh, the building is falling!)
(I like some blurry pictures… they almost look painted.)
This climbed was not too thrilling or memorable, but just writing about it now and depicting it as a toppled male fertility statue has made it more than it was before.
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