Trees

i consider myself lucky to be able to see trees outside the bedrooms i have had in the past few years.

they bring me back to days past when i lived the wild life my teenage years brought with it.
i have no regrets about those days.
i was in and out of school then for a couple of years.
in and out of our home as well.
my dad couldn't put up with my long hair, my friends, the drugs and the booze and my craziness.

some lessons learned came out of it which i carry, my baggage.

there was a short period when i lived with some prostitutes.
didn't meet them where they did their work. i had friends who were their boyfriends.
they took me in when they found out i got kicked out of our place.
some of them could relate cause that 's how they got started.
you say they could have done better than be what they ended up in.
easy to say. hey, some people today do worse.
anyway, it was to be a short stay. their "handler" found out and shot us out of their "house" early one morning.
yes. a couple of trees helped in our getaway and saved us from the gunshots fired at us.
ordinary trees, just.
i have never thought of prostitutes other than people who just don't have the same kind of luck we all were given.

i'll cut short to the next incident where trees made me do a turnaround.

my dad had given up on me. nothing he did worked to make me give up my "friends".
one day, instead of the usual screaming he just walked me out to our front yard where there were a couple of trees and a lot of smaller plants.

he admitted he was tired of me and his scoldings. i was a hopeless case.
(i finished high school and college and never attended graduation ceremonies which most parents look forward to. what for ? that was the end of the show, like the credits you see at the end of a film. now don't you guys walk out when they come along ?)

anyway, my dad then told me the trees and the plants around us were in a lot better shape than i was. they were stuck in the ground and yet each day they were able to do something with themselves and their situation. oh yeah, of course, it's the only way they'll survive.

but back to my dad. he said they were better off because they had something, leaves a-borning and a-falling, flowers and fruits showing. compared to nothing i could show for my daily, nightly excursions, incursions.

don't ask - it got to me. after he left i made up my mind i was going to finish school and get out of his face. after all he also told me he would still pay for my college education ( as well as for my four siblings. yes he did - debt-free.)

flash forward. when i was finally able to buy some land for my own home, first thing i had done was have some trees planted.

years later. were it not for the sight of those trees on the small plot of land, i would have sold it and not have the house i have on it now.

today, i think of my dad as another tree. he, inspite of our issues, has turned out to be a tree of sorts, holding us all together.

and so, every morning that i wake up, my eyes see the tall trees outside my bedroom window.
they seem to have followed me around from that time in my "friends'" yard as well as ours.

and, yes, Tony, the trees you are planting may well be enclosing me after i've breathed my last.

thanks Ton. let me thank you for all those people you say won't know you had planted trees which would outlive you, us.

they may just be trees.


you see me today and you wouldn't think i had done some wild things.
i'm sure you know some people who have similar experiences and you wouldn't know.
i know how you feel Ton.
you are dead on about those trees.
given the chance, they would be mute witnesses to the follies of man.