94. Swinging & Sliding: Write something inspired by a playground or tree house.
As a child, I spent too much time in the backyard by myself. (Aside: I wonder if this is why it’s so easy to be by myself most of the time now as an adult.) We had a well-foliaged yard with grass, plants, and some trees although none of the trees had sufficient structure to have a tree-house build into it. The apricot tree had a low branching point and I didn’t want to damage the tree in any way because I wanted the fruit! I don’t know the name of the largest tree in the yard, maybe a Chinese Elm, but it had a tall trunk but none of the limbs stretched in a way that was conducive to boards being placed between them. I did occasionally climb this tree and once I fell out of it and fractured my wrist. Stupid story: I was feeling invisible so I was sulking in the tree and then fell out of the tree; this was not the attention that I wanted. I spent most of my tree time in our Tree of Heaven, yep, it’s a real tree. It had 2 trunks I could climb and perch on top of. I peered into the neighbor’s yard to watch their beautiful collie dogs and talked to the elderly gentleman water the garden. It wasn’t a tree house but it was good enough for me.
