The Old Apple Tree

Dear Diary,

On the north side of my house is a very old apple tree.  It has always reminded me of the one at my childhood home in which my grandfather helped me build a tree house when I was quite small.  It was a favorite hideout for a little girl who cherished her own company.  I had to share it with my brother but when I knew he was off somewhere else I would escape to the tree house.  I could pull up the ladder and be completely alone there.

The best time was spring.  The tree would be in blossom and a robin usually built a nest nearby.  The air was scented in a heavenly way and when the wind blew it would rain pink petals.  Even at that early age I understood the need for a retreat.  Maybe that's why I love  to go on solitary retreats to an abbey now that I am at the other end of my life.

I do remember the overwhelming sadness I felt when my father knocked down the old tree to re-grade the backyard.  Its uniform flatness was sterile and totally unappealing to me and my heart ached for that tree house even though I was a teenager by that point and it was too rickety to use anyway.  It was the death of childhood I grieved along with the tree itself.  

Now, I can sit on my porch and look at this old tree and remember my grandfather and that special place we created in the apple tree.  I sometimes think this tree was part of the reason I bought the house 20 years ago.

We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it. ~George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, 1860