The Piece of Wood

Everyone knows you can count the rings on a tree trunk to see how old it is. If you counted my rings right after I moved to North Carolina, I would be 15 years old. 

I didn’t like living there, because it was hot, and my parents fought constantly. They enrolled me in a homeschool co-op to try to get me to make friends, but no one liked me, and the feeling was mutual. Every Thursday, I would sit by myself and glare at anyone who made eye contact. I was hurting inside and didn’t want to talk about it. 

I wanted to move back to Washington.

Those were my Thursdays. My Friday afternoons were spent in the woods with my brother. We had a pair of slingshots we used to fling rocks at anything that moved, and we would compete to hit the closest to the center of a target. He was always better than me, but even today I would never admit it to his face. We traipsed through the woods and kicked our feet to scare snakes out of the thick piles of leaves—animals we had never had to worry about in Washington. I liked the clean smell of the outdoors and the way I could taste the decomposing leaves on the front of my tongue. It was a time to de-stress and let go of the week. It was an escape from our pain.

I remember one Friday in particular. My brother and I jumped the fence at the end of our yard and went off into the great outdoors, slingshots in hand. We spent the better part of the afternoon listening for the rustle of squirrels in the underbrush. We never hit a single one in the entire year and a half we lived in there, but it was good fun to try. Part of what made it fun was the knowledge we would never have to worry about hurting them. We could try over and over because the squirrels were confident enough to stay. I can think of only a handful of times we hit within a few inches, sending a formerly brazen squirrel leaping into the air like bread out of a toaster and then shooting up a tree. 

The trees were as much a refuge for them as they were for me. My brother and I wandered through the woods and enjoyed being among them. It was starting to get hot, and the spring air smelled warm and musty. We found a tiny spring bubbling up from the ground and followed it downstream to see where it went. We chatted and laughed because we were far from the angst going on in our house. It was pleasant outside. 

Then we came to an abrupt clearing. Someone had torn out the underbrush and cut down the pines to make room for an unfinished pool. The trees were lying scattered across the ground in sections, while the stream had been diverted by a concrete retaining wall. 

I remember staring at it all with my brother and feeling hollow. We started picking up the thin cross-sections of branches the chainsaw had left behind and counted the rings to see how old the trees had been. Then we turned around and went back home. 

We never went back there, but I kept one of the smaller slabs. It sits on the shelf in my dorm room as a reminder of those afternoons, the spring, and the pool. 

I take it with me wherever I live. It has 53 rings.