Sentinel

 In my front yard, there was a tree. And this tree was, indubitably, a tree. In front of my house it rose, an immense behemoth of organic matter, a towering pillar of awesome, shedding its glory (in leaf form) onto our humble abode. It had exactly the right kind of bark, the kind that’s perfect for peeling off and making play swords with. I loved that tree, the way its roots gnarled and twisted into the dirt, disrupting the smooth flow of grass, the way its leaves formed an outer coating on the ground. I remember how I always made sure to tread carefully when running around it, because it was the kind of tree that would trip you up if you didn’t show it proper respect. This was a tree on which you would want to carve your initials.

Now that I live in a newer neighborhood (“new,” of course, being the euphemism for “treeless and devoid of personality”), I realize just how much I took that tree for granted. For as long as I lived in that house–indeed, since before I even existed–that tree had been there, standing watch over its domain, giving shade to the neighborhood’s inhabitants in the summer, and mischievously dropping clods of snow onto the heads of unsuspecting pedestrians in the winter. The idea that it had ever been, well, less than it was, is unfathomable.

For me, the world started to exist at the moment I was conceived, and no sooner. But the universe and everything in it has been existing, and growing, and expanding since the beginning of time, without regard to my presence. That Locust tree in my front yard was there before I showed up. And it’s stayed there ever since I left.

I wonder if it misses me, too.

 

[I wrote this piece about a year ago, as an assignment for my first ever Creative Writing class. My teacher probably never read it; we never actually turned it in. But I always felt like it deserved some recognition.]