Word Number 10: Slipfast

adj. longing to disappear completely; to melt into a crowd and become invisible, so you can take in the world without having to take part in it—free to wander through conversations without ever leaving footprints, free to dive deep into things without worrying about making a splash. 

From slip, to move or fly away in secret + fast, fortified against attack.

My husband and I moved to the Santa Cruz mountains just over a year ago; from a new construction in the Livermore suburbs, to a single family in the coastal redwood forest. This house, now our house, is framed by two monster trees that stand at attention to either side of the  front door. These two particular trees appeared unshakable, even hostile as we walked through their guard and among the leaf litter to the door. If you’ve never seen a redwood, throw out any images of climbing trees, the ones with low inviting branches that staircase up and up until mom says “I think that’s high enough.” 

The first time it was a beetle, black and shining, dropping dead directly at my feet and startling me “Eegh!” I said, looking around for others.  I look up, eyeing the trees, suspicious of the silence, before stepping over it. 

The next time it’s a drip of sap, the lightest touch on my shoulder. “Yes?” I say, turning to my husband. 

“I didn’t say anything,” he says.

I shrug, later discovering the sap when it is mostly dry, the tacky substance smearing as I attempt a quick sink and soap save of the shirt in the bathroom in another open house. 

The third time we pull up late in the afternoon, when the sun is low but has yet to sink, at the angle where each ray flicks in and out among the green. I step out of the car, eyes lifted in anticipation of the next falling gift. And then I slip, slick shoes sliding as I grip the car door, gaze ripping from the sky to an unfamiliar carpet of green and gold. The smell of wet rushes into my nose, but not the familiar “wet asphalt in the desert” smell; rain that begins to evaporate on contact with the black dehydrated pavement. This is wet. The air fertile, pregnant with a water near breaking. A small stream flows in the divot of the asphalt where a city drain would be. Water that continuously runs downhill until we ask our neighbor if there “might be a broken pipe nearby.”

“What pipe?” she’ll say 

“The pipe all this water is coming from.” I say, gesturing to the “river.” “Water has been running down the side of the road ever since we moved in.”

She stares. 

“Do you think it’s ours?” I say

“Your what?”

“Our water pipe!”

Her sudden laugh stops me.

“Honey, it’s no pipe” her eyes are smiling. “It’s always like that, the water is just trying to make its way downhill.” 

I won’t believe her, I’ll keep worrying about the pipe, the water will keep flowing down the street. 

The wet is everywhere all at once. I think this is what growth must smell like. It's ivy twisting up a tree, coiling around and around, blind tendrils searching for their next anchor point. It jumps between trees, making use of growth's odd angles. The beginning and end of each strand is unclear, some branches devolving into a tangled mass of twisting vines, sagging under the voracious ivy's teenage appetite. 

 My husband turns towards me, light catching his eye. A damp breeze caresses my freshly shaved arms, raising goosebumps. My love raises his hand to block the sun and behind him, I catch a glimpse of the sentinel's crown, green fingers waving from 30 stories up.

Tree Me

I talk to trees, at least I do now, offering bite sized pieces of my day to their branches, secrets for dessert. I crane my neck skyward for a glimpse of the crown and waving green fingers, I wonder what it’s like to be so tall, so old, so mother.

I imagine that if I was a tree, I’d help the birds build their nests, severing bird-sized branches for the little bowls they call home. In return, I would be trusted with tiny, speckled eggs from which prehistoric creatures emerge, naked and squawking. Much too soon mother bird would shove her feathered dinosaurs out of the nest with the promise of flight, looking at me to catch them in my lower branches should tiny wings fail. 

When the wind blows, I’d fight to protect the silken threads the spider wove between my arms, glistening artwork. 

When the rain pours, I’d splay my rows of flat, elongated needles wide, directing the flow from stained glass wings. 

And when the dark rises, creatures would return to me for sleep, sun’s final ray a bedtime kiss. Goodnight scorpion cuddled in my bark; goodnight snail nestled amongst my roots. 

***

Tree Me would soak up the silence; Tree Me would feast on fracas.

Today, I receive a hug and sway my branches in euphoric thanks.

I fling my seeds.

I wield my ruddy bark like armor.

I reveal the sweet fleshy sap I keep sealed within.

Even the fungi, deep within my core, devour me from the inside.

And I do not fault their desperate attempt to live. 

Yours,

Max

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References

Koenig, John. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition