Entry Seven: Tuesday March 31, 2015 6:00 pm

The wind ushers clouds across the sky at dizzying speeds. In only seconds, the dark grey forms have moved into frame from the right, across my line of vision, and beyond the peripheral sight of my left eye. Because the thunder clouds are only a shade darker than the sky that envelopes them, I have to focus very carefully to track their movement. The pages of my notebook fwop-fwop-fwop under the wind’s power. I slide my pen into the spiral binding and pocket the tiny pad to silence its unruly pages.

Still the wind demands to be noticed. It charges my face, forcing my nose to run and eyes to water. It drives the grass dry split ends of my hair to snap against the tree. My hands numb in that winter-familiar way that make jotting down notes painful. The wind brings with it, too, the scent of mountain fresh dryer sheets. I wrinkle my nose and will the unnatural smell away.

The wind bullies my tree as well, swirling its branches into a tornado. Red starburst bursts like scarlet chestnuts peppering the remaining branches of my tree are tossed about. I scan the trees surrounding my property and find that no others show signs of growth. My heart swells. I can’t help but wonder if the premature growth is at least in part from me pouring all of my energy into this tree. My prayers for regeneration have not been answered, but a consolation is served in the form of these tiny spiked bulbs. I find myself wishing that one would fall so I could examine it more closely. Despite the gusts and gales the starbursts cling to their branches. I decide this is best for they promise new life.

I watch them flap in the wind: branches reaching left, then right, and finally swirling in a circle. The movement is in like an inhale. I watch the bronchial tubes flex as they fill with air from the breeze. Suddenly I realize that more than a lung, this branch instead looks like a heart: the thick bough: an artery; the branches: capillaries.

I position myself so that I am sitting more on the small of my back than my behind and wedge my knee up against this bough. This way I can arch to watch my tree’s heart pump without my neck aching. Red with the blood of new life, enriched with the oxygen of the earth, my tree’s heart beats again. Just like Kole’s heart beats again; his heart valve salvaged six months ago was recently transplanted to an eleven-month-old girl.

A particularly strong gust of wind grabs hold of my tree. Against my knee, I feel the trunk flex almost imperceptibly away from me and back again. The movement must have been less than an inch. Feeling the solidity of a tree trunk move is like feeling the first movements of a baby through her mother’s stomach: foreign, almost alien; disturbing, yet the most natural gesture possible. I feel my pulse and breathing quicken and I shoot into an upright position. I’m dizzy but cannot stop the smile from blooming on my lips. I lean into the bough, embrace my tree, and wait for the next breath of life.