My favorite place:

A tree at Trout Lake

By Maddy Simpson | Royal Report

I stare at the huge tree trunk, and with my eyes follow the lines of the bark up the tree to the millions of pine needles on the protruding branches, the perfect climbing tree.

Rusty nails stick out from the tree near the ground, someone from the past’s solution to an absence of low branches. The tree has grown around the nails slightly, taking them in as part of the tree.

In my mind is a romantic image of myself when I reach highest branch of the tree, fearless and gazing down at the land, my oasis above the leafy canopy.

As I place my hand on the trunk, I plant the tip of my shoe on the first nail, and stand up, letting all my weight rest on the nail. Slowly, I climb.

Half way up I stop. I’m only about twenty feet off the ground. I can hardly see anything around me because of surrounding trees. But I’m afraid.

I’m afraid because I just realized that I am completely alone in this forest, and if I fell, no one would know.

I stand there, halfway up, and try to force myself to continue. But I can’t.

I slowly climb down, my hands sticky with sap as they move from one branch to the next. My feet touch dirt, and I immediately want to go back up, but I stay grounded, for now, and plan to come back to the tree the next day.