Growing Stages

"Has it really been that long?
Did I count the days wrong?
Did we just go back at all 
All the way to step one?
.. 
Just growin' up in stages
(lay down no more)
Livin' life in phases"
- Patience, by Tame Impala 


There's a Christmas tree growing in my parent's yard, only it doesn't look like one anymore. We bought it around twenty years ago, I believe, and during the month of December it sat in our living room, decorated by small hands with the varied ornaments which rate on a sliding scale of dearness to each of my siblings, parents, and I. Right after Christmas, the tree was planted in the yard. On my parent's five acres, the pine tree was between the garden and the fig tree. It sprouted pine cones and gradually grew taller. One day, I remembered that I had forgotten all about it.

From the window of my childhood bedroom, the one I'm currently inhabiting once again since I just moved back to the States seventy-eight days ago, I can see the tree, which is massive in height though strangely lacking in any other way. It's a bit like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree on steroids: just on eyeballing it I'd guess it is close to forty feet tall, yet rather than being dense with pine needles it is bare. Pine cones cling to the weary-looking branches, a final offering from a non-resplendent tree which could have looked like a cover model for Rockefeller Center, but just never made it. Only at the very top are a few healthy-looking clusters of evergreen pine needles; a shred of dignity I smile to see.

Because of it's general lack-luster appearance and now somewhat alarming height, my parents have decided it's time for the tree to be cut down before it falls. As one would imagine, it's not a task my father looks forward to with enthusiasm, and since there are always so many outdoor tasks at hand, for now the tree remains just within sight of my bedroom window when I twist my head and let my eyes follow it up and up.

I see the tree and think of how there is a time for everything, even memories. I had forgotten completely about that Christmas we bought the living pine tree, and that it had been planted in the yard ever since. Yet in a moment the memories rushed back. How exciting it was to keep it alive throughout Christmas, and how novel, exotic even, to have it growing in our yard amount the oaks, cedars, and elms. I am reminded of the feeling of being small, and the wisps of wonder around ordinary things. Christmas has always been my favorite holiday for that very reason; there is a simple and brilliant wonder which glistened over so much of that holiday season when I was a child, and which can still catch in my chest and make my heart skip a beat.

One day the tree will be gone, as it must, yet the memories will remain, either forever or for a short time. In the now, I am brought back. In the future, perhaps I will be bought back again by these words, or else be preoccupied with some other memory in the making. They come and go. They grow and fade. They are us.