I haven't quite gotten to the point where I'd be able to fall asleep, yet at this precise moment I am far too sloth-like to contemplate anything else. So, with my laptop resting on my chest, purring like a digital pet I'll do my best to get through this one.
It's about time I get at least a little bit of this out of me some way or another. No-one reads this shit anyway.
I took a picture today just outside the gates to my building. There is an old red-brick wall that is engulfed in climbing plants and weeds. It's crumbling away and probably hides a multitude of sins, but I always notice it because she used to tell me quite often that she loved it being there, loved the look of it.
Infront of the wall is a large tree, I wish I could say which species it is, but honestly, I have no idea. At the minute the leaves are all lush and green and the whole scene looks very natural. The wall and the tree look as if they should be together, although through the different seasons that have come and gone it has not always been the case, nor will it continue to be.
I took the picture because for the first time these two things made me think of me and her. I am the wall; always there, rain or shine, laying down flat in the grass. She is the tree; ever changing, always growing in different directions, growing upward and not always in bloom. It kind of summed up the relationship we've had since we first met.
Slender and adaptable to whichever season, rich brown spiralling branches hanging down. Ever growing toward the sky as if desperate to lift off from the ground altogether. Even a strip of red rope around one bough; it's funny that even the sight of a red elastic band forces me to think of her. Sometimes her leaves are in bloom, and sometimes they aren't. Sometimes she has loved me, other times she hasn't. But the wall continues to be there, a little cracked each time but still standing, protecting the tree from bad weather the best it can. Holding onto the heat from the day's sunshine to keep the tree warm and sheltered, even though she's head and shoulders above and beyond it in so many ways, even though she drops her own leaves.
Right now I guess we're in a winter stage, and I honestly can't say whether her leaves will grow back. Perhaps they never will, and to be honest it looks like the wall has seen just enough cracks and bad weather to keep it from wanting any more, but nevertheless, I took the picture because it reminded me of a time when everything was green.
I noticed too that the tree has two big canopies; one growing away from the wall, the other growing toward. The wall itself is covered in moss and wild grasses, even tattered green dresses that have been carelessly flung over it, as if the wall is pretending to be a tree, or at least trying to learn how to be one. I sympathise. I empathise.
Nicholas John Hancill
