April 23, 2005

• Chapter one.   Please feel free to point out typos and spelling errors.  I WANT to know about them...oh yes and grammer tenses.   I changed tenses and quite possibly have missed a few.   Enjoy...or skip.  You pick.  *grin*

  
  

  
  

  The tree stands.    I drive down the bumpy dirty driveway sneaking down a road I no longer belong on.  And breathe a soft smile, for my tree still stands.  It is small, and crippled looking.   It stands on a small dirt hill having changed so little.   And yet the memories surrounding it are many.   And I smile softly to myself.   Each time my family or my friends start talking about that time in my life.  We talk about the tree.  The Crooked Tree with a capital C.   Each person who has married or has a prospective spouse has talked about the Crooked Tree.   And hauled that spouse to stand beside or drive beside the tree.   Each spouse or prospective one has laughed when they’ve seen it.  “Doesn’t look like much,” But we smile because it stands.

  
  

        They are right it doesn’t look like much.  A little shaggy cedar tree that was bent crooked sometime in its youth.  We never knew how it got that way.   It was a part of the story we never heard.  I always liked to dream that my father or one of his brothers did it when they were little.  The property had been in my family that long.   We theorized that a deer used it as a scratching post, or the stock that used to run in the field rubbed on it.   Whatever the reasons it was tipped funny and grew parallel to the ground for a long time.   Eventually it found a way to grow back up toward the heavens.   And there it grew, preparing itself to shelter our childhood. 

  
  

        “Mom, its so ugly, couldn’t you have found a better tree?”   My oldest daughter asks me.  And I just smile, for the ugliness was a part of its appeal.   It gave it mystery and fascination.    “Yes, its ugly, but so often in life the ugly things in life are what teach us our greatest lessons.”   I respond waxing entirely too eloquent for her liking.   She rolls her eyes in her wise seven-year-old way and snickers at me with her brother.   

  
  

        I laugh at her.  She’s right I’m being too serious.  The tree wasn’t serious it was a place for playing, for laughing.   A place for dreaming of what we would be when we grew up.  We saw how high we could climb, and what we could dig in the dirt under the tree.   And we laughed.

  
  

         I took a picture of the tree with my mind and turned the car around.   It was time to go shopping, to do the boring errands, and cook the dinner.   It was time to feed the baby, and clean up my son’s messes.   But in my mind I was back to a time when things were simpler and yet much more complicated.

  
  

        Jungle swings, cancer, school skits, fishing, swimming, rafts, fears, prayers, singing, guitar music, hide and seek, spying.    These were all the things that made up the years that I lived under the branches of the trees.

  
  

       “Mom, mom can we watch TV when we get home?”  Kaylin my four year old calls to me interrupting my daydream.   “Yeah can we?”   Sam pipes in. 

  
  

        “Oh guys, can’t you wait until we get home?  Don’t wish your life away for crying out loud.”  I say with a tinge of exasperation.   I’m the mom of six kids.  Exasperation comes easily.   At least I tend to use that as my excuse.   In truth it’s a part of who I am.    It pretty much always has been.   Bossy, exasperating, and fiercely protective of all whom I love.   

  
  

       I sift through the memories like I’m seventy years old trying to decide which one to start on, and can’t pick one.   The overwhelming memory is extreme contentedness and a sense of wonder as to how my parents established that.

  
  

   

  
  

       My parents were normal they were a logger and a farmer's daughter respectively.    My mom is Canadian and met my dad on his property while traveling for a Mission on Vancouver Island.    They courted by mail and married a bit older then most, at the ages of 23 and 24.     My dad has always lived on the same piece of property.     It’s a beautiful piece of property with woods, fields, a pond and a little tiny creek.    Peaking through the trees we can see the Olympics and I still think its one of the top ten most beautiful spots to live.

  
  

              “Mom when are we going to get home?”   My three-year-old Rainee interrupts my reverie with her chronic question.   “When we get there.”  I respond with vagueness.   My mind is in another world.   “Mom, tell us a story about the Crooked Tree.”   I smile fondly.  I like telling the stories, and it will make getting home happen just a bit faster.  

  
  

       “Come on lets go!”  Tonia calls as she races down the dirt road.  “I’m hurrying as fast as I can.”  Karla says panting trying to gather up the toys she’d brought with her to school for show and tell.     “Your as bad as Hocus-Pocus-Slowpoke.”  Tonia said rather impatiently.  Hocus in case you can’t remember is a small palomino pony.  He’s cute, but doesn’t like to move much.    After a minute of helping Karla get her belongings together the three children head down the long dirt driveway towards home.   

  
  

             We head down the driveway on our way home from school not in too big of a hurry all of a sudden.   The driveway is long, and there is much to look at.  The woods are mossy, fresh and moist.  Grandpa taught us to notice and appreciate the small details.   We observe the sallow brush and the sword ferns and their varying shades of green.     We also have to study the small drainage ditch that runs along side the dirt driveway to see how much water is running.   Some days we will spot a frog jumping, but today its just barely babbling.    

  
  

               We are soon on the edge of my parents seven acres.   They live nestled in the center of it.   On either side are beautiful hand split rail fences.   My dad made them.   My horse, and my sibling's ponies are ranging on the right side pasture.  “Hi Sadie!”  Tonia calls out with generous enthusiasm.   We’re young everything is met with that level of energy.     We also have the combination of German and Irish blood flowing through our veins.   It makes for loud effervescent energy. 

  
  

       As we enter down the driveway a bit further our Great Dane Rastus comes out to greet us.  Rastus is a huge black dog.    Grandpa likes big dogs he says nobody will mess with them.   He’s probably right.     Soon peeping through the trees we see our house. 

  
  

       Our house, it was a beautiful place.   Our parents built it out of logs Grandpa logged himself.    It wasn’t huge, just the perfect size for us four bedrooms, a nice living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom combined with laundry room.    The door was built out of one thick six-inch slab of wood.   Grandpa carved it with his chain saw.  Nestled in the middle of it was an antique stain glass window Grandma had found at a second-hand store.   Grandma likes second hand stores.  We’ve spent a lot of hours searching for treasures in them.      The door handle didn’t turn like normal doors.  Instead you slid it to the right to slide the piece of wood that connected to the wall back into hiding inside the door.    It was unique.  It was fun to feel that way. 

  
  

                 As we opened the door we shouted.  “Mom we’re home!”   And it was a wonderful comforting feeling.  The house smelled like dinner, and trees.   We threw our coats in the general direction of the nook where they belonged.  And rushed to mom to tell her about our day.    The hallway was covered with rock slate.   Grandma put it there thinking there was no possible way we could damage it with our muddy boots.    She was right too.   Its funny how often moms are.   On my left side was the stairs that went up to the bedroom.  The stairs were carved out of one big log with my dad’s chain saw.   The handrail was a crooked bendy log about 3 inches in diameter.  Grandpa had found it in the woods one day when he was logging.  He had chipped the bark off of it, and our hands over the years had polished it glossy.   

  
  

      When they had chosen to build a house moving out of my dad’s childhood home, Grandpa had said.  “I can’t build with a hammer and nails, but if I can use a chain-saw and axe I can do it.”   And do it he did.   It was unique, and possibly a bit funky, but in my child's eye it was perfect.
       Grandma greeted us from the kitchen.  She was busy doing one of the nebulous things that mothers do.    We expected her world to stop when we entered.  She honored that and welcomed us and listened to our discussion of our day.   After a few minutes we separated to do our varying chores. 

  
  

       We all ran upstairs to get out of our stupid school clothes.  Us girls had to wear skirts; and into play clothes.  

  
  

       Tonia pulled faded jeans on, and a play shirt.   Her clothes were left where they dropped as she ran outside to feed Sadie.   It got dark early and we wanted to play as long as possible before being trapped in the house for the night.    Karla and Joel were off doing similar things.    Grandma didn’t require us to do home work when we got home, she wanted us to wiggle while we could.   I’m so glad she let us be kids.

  
  

       Soon our horses were fed and we were biking down the driveway.  “We’ll be at the crooked tree.”  Tonia yelled.  The long driveway that had seemed interminable a few minutes earlier passed in seconds.    Joel biked passed the crooked tree he was headed to his best-friends house.  They’d be back sooner or later.   There was no one at the tree yet.  This meant our friends had been forced into chores.  It was okay.   Tonia climbed the crooked tree to its top and studied the view and began to dream.  

  
  

        Tonia pulled, and pushed herself through the soft flat branches of the cedar tree until she was up where the tree had a perfect niche for leaning.   As she sat there she could survey her entire neighborhood.   She could see her grandma out in her garden puttering in her house that was a converted chicken house.   It was a maroon colored log house that they had cleaned out, added a bathroom onto, and a few other amenities, so grandpa could have the main house.   It was the way my grandma helped my dad your grandpa get a good start in life.       

  
  

        Sitting fairly close to it was the house my grandma had raised her boys in, and that we had lived in when we were little—except Karla she’d been born in the log house.    Now my brother’s best friend and his little brother lived there.        Farther up the hill and closer to the Olympic foothills I could see our neighbor who we were a bit scared of.  She didn’t like kids and was always yelling at somebody.     She used to yell at my dad when he was little; it was her role in life.    And beyond that empty golden fields dotted in places with alders, or baby evergreen.

  
  

        The view was old, to Tonia she’d seen it a hundred times, but it always seemed new and fascinating.   She settled down to watch, and to dream.   Tonia had many dreams.   Her mom said when she grew up she’d probably leave the Peninsula and spread her wings.    But in her heart of hearts she didn’t want to spread too far.  She liked the fact that her dad had always lived on this property, and her grandma had spent most of her married life on it.   Tonia liked the consistency and continuity of life.   But, it was also fun to dream.

  
  

       Mr. Runnion had come to speak at Chapel that day and told stories about Vampire Bats somewhere in South America.   We had all been fascinated by the stories.  He had slept with his head hiding under his sleeping bag praying that they wouldn’t eat him, Tonia wanted to be that missionary, canoeing through dark rivers, killing snakes, and telling cannibals about Jesus. She could picture the bamboo hut she would sleep in, and the amazing stories she would tell.

  
  

       But secretly the real dream Tonia had was to meet a man, very similar to her father Grandpa.

  
  

              My five-year-old son Samuel interrupted the story.  “Oh mom that’s disgusting.”  Zeria my seven year old giggled at this too.  “Oh how gross.”     I laughed at her and said.  “Just you wait little munchkin.”  “I’m never gonna marry.”   Samuel said screwing up his face into something horrible.  “No you’re not with that face.”  Zeria said poking her brother in the back.   I held up my hand to stop the noise.  “Do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?”   I asked to stall the inevitable fight.  “Yeah!”  Kaylin the four year old cheered.    I gathered my thoughts up for a moment and started in again. 

  
  

  .   Tonia wanted to raise a family, to go to church, to live the way her parents did.   Because it was the real dream she didn’t share it, she held it close to her heart not letting anyone see how much she truly wanted it. Tonia settled into dream nevertheless and watch the clouds pass by.   They seemed so close, so real.  She felt like she could reach out and touch them.

  
  

       “Hey, Tonia I’m done my chores, mom made me clean my room, and it was nasty!”   Melaina said from the bottom of the tree.  Melaina was the owner of the Crooked Tree, well her parents were.   She was whom Tonia had been waiting for.   Karla had joined Melaina’s brothers and was busy digging in the dirt at the base of the tree.

  
  

    Tonia waved from her lofty perch and began to climb down.  “Hi, what we gonna do today?”  Tonia queried out of curiosity.  They always had some new scheme to keep them from being bored.     Melaina tossed her head back throwing her long honey blonde hair out of her face.    “I was thinking spying.  Have you seen the boys yet?  I say we go get our pocket knives and cut some alders and use them as camouflage and spy on them.”

  
  

        Tonia grinned and pulled my pocketknife out of my pocket.  “I’m prepared, lets do it.”   Alders were weed trees; we were allowed to cut them as much as we wanted.   It was the only tree we were allowed to damage.     We headed to a nice little crop of them and hacked down several nice bushy trees about 5 feet tall.   They would be perfect for hiding behind.

  
  

       “Now, I wonder where the boys are today?”  The boys consisted of my brother, his friend Bob, and sometimes his brother Paul. We rather enjoyed tormenting them…that was what boys were for after all.    

  
  

       We listened and couldn’t hear them.  It wasn’t surprising we were wandering over twenty-five acres combined between our three sets of parents, and my grandma’s property.   They all gave us free reign to explore and raid all of their properties.    There was also a five that my parents had sold to a retired couple, and they too let us treat it as our own.   It gave us an incredible back yard to play in.   So we decided to head in the direction of Bob and Paul’s house.    Bob had a fascinating tree house that the boys like to wile away their day in. 

  
  

       There were problems fraught in us spying there.    We had to get past Melaina’s house, and across a county road.   We didn’t want to be seen, that was the rule behind spying after all.     We didn’t see these as insurmountable, rather as a challenge.   We crouched behind our alder trees and sneakily headed through the woods.   In a few minutes we came to Melaina’s brick patio.   No problem we continued to sneak across this.  Trees walked across patios every day you know.

  
  

       Half way through Tonia looked up to see her mom and Mrs. P Melaina’s mom looking out the kitchen window laughing their heads off.    We giggled waved back and ran for the trees.   Apparently trees don’t walk across patios.     We knew that, but were quite proud of ourselves for causing our parents to laugh.    When we got back to the safety of the woods we laughed for a long time completely forgetting our initial mission.  “You know I suppose we’re probably getting too old for spying.”  Melaina said thoughtfully.   Tonia giggled for a minute.  “Nah, never too old for spying.”  She nodded her head, laughed and grabbed her alder trees once again.

  
  

       The memory fades; I don’t remember if we ever did find the boys.   I do remember spying on a brick patio, so does grandma, she was laughing about it the other day.   We were rather nutso, but it was so much fun to have the freedom to be that way.

  
  

  Tonia Signor Copyrighted 2005
  

  • 12:57 am
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