The Way to Go

Flash Fiction

The Way to Go

I used to love climbing trees. When I was just old enough to walk, I climbed my first tree! My mother almost had a heart attack. She tells the story all the time. She put me down on the grass in our backyard so she could move the cat dishes. She was afraid I’d try to eat the leftover cat food. When she turned back, I was in a tree! Sort of… It was only about three feet high and I had tipped it completely onto one side trying to climb on top of it. She did save me, and the tree too.

After that day my parents were notably careful with me and trees. However, if I could reach a branch, up I went. Mom re-did the whole back yard that year making wide circles of straw around all the trees, held up with bricks or stone or whatever she could get that would keep me from the tree. Of course I grew, and I never lost my desire to climb.

When I got old enough to go places without a babysitter, I had to promise my parents that I would not climb anything. But I kept forgetting. When I almost broke my arm on a maple two blocks away, they gave in and got me an instructor.

“That’s an amazing story,” said the woman with the notepad. She was doing an article on climbing, and she knew my instructor so she was adding me to her article! I’ve never climbed a tree in my life,” she added.

“Oh,” I said, “you’re missing a lot!” She just laughed.

Then, the very next day I saw her picture in a magazine. She apparently never did climb a tree, but she did climb quite a few mountains… Poor Mom and Dad…