Scraped Knees and Back Flips

Look up. A patchwork of coiling branches is tangled and twisted like a mile-long shoelace, forming a towering canopy beneath the sprawling sky. Each wooden corkscrew clutches on to the next as the sea of foliage sweeps over and around. It is impenetrable, yet not restricting; it is a shield, but not a cage. Flower buds cling to the swooping trees, shielding baby-pink flowers from the unrelenting air until springtime. Playful threads of sunlight squeeze through spaces no bigger than freckles and cast glimmering patterns of honey on the mint-chocolate ground. Shadows splashed by tree trunks and tall grass work in harmony with the sun’s sparkling light to compose a masterpiece across a muddy canvas.

Now look around. Patches of so-called weeds sprout from the ground like untamed hair, so dense and so vivid that no rainforest ever glowed with such a brilliant green. The individual blades of silken grass stand poised and aware, stretching upwards as if to proclaim their leafy importance to the world. Hear the melodic quiet of the overgrown sanctuary: the ‘swoosh’ of a rogue breeze sweeping through the liquid grass, and the rhythmic slap of one dry branch colliding with another. Feel the warmth of speckled sunlight and the cool breath of winter unite on uncovered skin—a bittersweet reminder that summer heat isn’t always in season.

Taking advantage of the moist, February weather, rain collects in murky lakes in the pits between rolling hills. The water forms caramel brown pools so smooth and opaque they create the mirage of solidity. Only when waves of wind penetrate the walls of branches do symmetrical ripples break the water’s reflective stillness. Where they have not been sunken by the seasonal lakes, trails of bike wheels and footprints scrape canyons through the hilly terrain, carving out trails: left turn, right turn, sharp climb, steep plummet. Crisscrossed patterns of sneakers and tires are the markers of a thousand wild journeys up and down these mountains. This tree-covered escape is a place for scraped knees and best friends and BMX bikes and tree houses and scavenger hunts and back flips; it is a place for daring explorations and humming tires; it is a rebel’s hideaway and a dreamer’s heaven.

This place has no definite name, for it has no definite purpose. It is a skate park with enough ramps and hills to amuse the most talented of bikers and also a tree climber’s paradise with broad, horizontal branches like balance beams overhead. It is a picturesque backdrop for make-believe games—a life threatening expedition to rescue a princess in her treetop castle, or an expedition through a mysterious jungle where mythical creatures rule. It is a natural playground for the young at heart.

There is one board that is nailed to a tree by a rusted nail no more reliable than a thumbtack. That slab of wood is discolored by illegible, scarlet graffiti and lined with wise wrinkles from fingernails and shoe bottoms. Its edges are frayed like the fabric of a vintage rug, and its underside reveals a web of cracks that originate from where someone carved an “X” with a sharp rock. Out of context, the three-foot board—ugly and unreliable, wasted and small, rotten and broken—is an object best belonging in the pit of a landfill. But here, it is a tree house: the faithful home base that helps little kids with little legs climb into the open arms of the ancient sycamores.

Often, when I was young enough to play make believe, yet old enough to brave the neighborhood alone, I would use that wooden gateway to hoist myself up into the tree. Scratchy bark crumbled under my feet like fish scales, sharp sticks drew ruby red stains on my palms, and frenzied troops of ants marched up and down my legs. But it didn’t matter: I was an explorer. Leaping, swinging, laughing—I used flexible branches like vines as I traversed over the jumps and turns of the bike arena below. I conquered treacherous heights and made daring jumps that allowed me to maneuver up and down, right and left—everywhere in the treetop mansion.

When climbing, I took advantage of the powerful connectivity of the hideaway. Every twig, every leaf and every mound of dirt is in someway linked to everything else: one branch holds wooden hands with a twig from the adjacent tree; the bumpy roots of that tree slither parallel to the bike trails; a meadow of misfit plants gathers at the end of that trail, spreading out over a makeshift bike ramp to another winding row of saluting trees. The entire location is simply one line: one long, adaptable line that is at once as thin as a hair and as sturdy as a tree trunk. It is a continuous motion from the dirty floor to the cloudy sky, a strand of infinity coiled into the shape of a child’s dream-come-true. No break. No disconnection. No end.

When all fun has been had and all memories have been made, one must leave through the exit. Though no sign or marking dictates where this specific “exit” is, the correct way to depart is unmistakable. In the back of the area, behind a delicate sapling with wispy branches is a clean, tidy hole in the foliage. Light filters through this gap in bright golden explosions, shining upon the interior like nature’s own spotlight. Standing beneath the archway of this exit doesn’t provide a view of the parking lots and the asphalt and the freeways and the street lamps that surround this secret escape on every other side; instead, this back door reveals the serene view of one winding little path—one lone trail surrounded by tufts of fluffy green grass and lemon-yellow flowers. The numerous entrances to this place are unmemorable and bare, but the exit is profoundly different. It seems to lead to a broad expanse of nothing but sky: blue, glowing, infinite sky.

This landscape—a dusty mountain range and an emerald pasture, a bottomless crevice and a forest of noble trees, a wide savanna and a lush lakeshore—is a landscape that defies mortality with its unending connections. It is a country, a continent, a plant, and a galaxy, and it fits snugly in a space less than a hundredth of a square mile. An aerial view would discard it as a patch of overgrown shrubs, because, nestled between the straight runways of the Petaluma Municipal Airport and the polygonal fields of Prince Park, that’s all it is. In the grand scheme of things, this universe of bike ramps and climbing trees is little more than an oddly shaped collection of broken wood and tired plants. However, humans are made to look at the world not from an airplane or satellite, but from the earthy soil below. A widescreen perspective provides knowledge and comparison, but up-close observation offers beauty and discovery. Faded weeds get a little greener, and a few yards of dirty bike trails start to resemble expanse of hills and valleys. Looking at life through the “big picture” isn’t always the best way to see.

-- Camille