Conceit

or Oak Red

We've been here before.  Many years ago, when she was my vibrant, bouncy shadow, and I was her giant rock of wisdom and experience, we had come here to run, roll, stretch and squeal, and to climb all the strong, baby oak trees that all our strong, baby limbs could reach.  Back then, I swear we had the whole park to ourselves whenever we'd visit, even though I also knew North Berkeley wasn't so small that a gem like Live Oak Park could go unnoticed.  Back then, no matter what the weather, as soon as Dad called out that it was time go home Little Sis was somehow suddenly at the top of the main hill and then rolling down, like a flailing, whirling wave of strawberry hair and energizer-bunny squeals.  It's not a long roll, and Dad was always waiting at the bottom by the sidewalk, so of course she would run back up to the top and roll down again, this time with her big sister, and the next few times too.  It was a tradition, back then, so Dad was patient, and in my memory he was always smiling.  

The top quarter of the park is cut off by a pair of benches and a fork in the path that otherwise would have taken a warm, weekend walker about 15 minutes to go around the whole perimeter of the full 5 acres.  That’s not including the secret creek at the South end, where we would go later in life, just out of college.  Little Sis's craigslist puppy, Toby, would force us to go down and splash in the cold water nearly every weekend.  But the final, great, hill-rolling tradition would always start right there in the main green, about a quarter of the way down from the top of the park and right after the bench break.  As a kid, that cement boarder with the benches was the edge of a quicksand wormhole, and the top of that rolling area was our universe, guarded by Dad on the West edge below, Toby’s creek on the South side, and along the North boarder the biggest oak tree I’ve ever met, also the coveted picnic spot where all the active families wanted to set up camp.  We called her Big Red, Little Sis, Dad, and me, because of the deep auburn she gave off from a distance, against the greenish, yellow leaves at her feet and the grays and browns of the fenced path behind her.  I still have a picture somewhere of Toby sitting there, right at Big Red’s feet, panting and cooling off with an orange tennis ball beside him.  The size of the ancient trunk and its raised roots gave separate parties of people, or one tired puppy, the sense that they each had found a private plot of shade where they could settle down and nurse the day away.  If we were lucky to get a spot by Big Red, Dad would make sure it was facing the glad, so he could still have a clear line of sight to his little rascals, skinny or furry, who needed a bit more room to reign.  

And here we were again, my sister and me, and I could see was her dark blonde hair shine with that fruity halo again, and her brown eyes turned deep black like the post-rain soil when she smiled and squealed against the green, the same tingly green that whispers to me in dreams.  The people out there with us make noises like a background soundtrack, never distinct enough to distract but just enough to complete my mood.  In the back of my scull a low buzz drums a familiar chill through my bones, like excitement and hope, or nervous butterflies.  It’s just like I remember, with everything just right and my sister with me, albeit a bit taller and stronger.  She had outgrown me by the time she left high school, and I wonder if that’s the fate of all older siblings:  to grow up only to keep looking up.

Oak trees are native to North America, and the ones here in Live Oak Park have fertilized California for ages—at least for thirty to eighty years.  Others call them Coastal Oaks, and I can feel the neighboring ocean salt flying in from just around the corner.  Sometimes I've heard them called Red Oaks, and yes, I can feel now these early spring canopies and late winter mattresses warm my blood, calm the flow of my mind, rebuild for the thousandth time that core network of roots, pulling from the hidden under-ground and growing up through my intestines, giving me my weight again--

"So, how's saving for adoption going?"  

--They also call them Holm Oaks--

"Hello?" My sister's voice seeps slowly into the front of my brain. "Hello? Are you listening?"  She's stopped walking and is a few steps and a small pile of day old dog poop behind me.  Probably dog poop.  I had stepped off the cement path, onto the grass, and just over the creature's gift.  

"You ok?" she asks with her left hand up slightly between us.  "Where're you going?"

"Oh," I reply, "I was just heading to Big Red."

"What?" She follows my gesture toward the big oak. "Oh, that?"

"Yeah. Like we used to?"

"Well, I was heading to those benches," she points in the opposite direction and we both look uphill just in time to watch a horde of three kids, two adults, two picnic baskets, and one large tarp arrive at the benches.  Little Sis turns back around.  "Yeah, ok.  We can use your giant jacket as a blanket." We continue walking.

"Oh I won't need it, you can use it.  It's too warm for me." It's just before noon, prime time for the gatherings to begin, so I'm pleasantly surprised that the best spot isn't taken.  It's the flattest patch of dried earth around the base of the trunk, between two large surfacing roots.  I start to lay my jacket down. “You remember whe—"

"Too warm? What are you talking about?" Little Sis asks from behind me.  "I mean to sit on, like exactly what you're doing now."

I look down.  "Oh. Yeah.  Of course.  Blanket, like--I think I was confused--"

"Because you aren't getting any younger, you know, and I still think you should consider freezing your eggs."  She sits down, and my body slowly follows her to the jacket, while my mind zips through recent words and scenes trying to remember what she was saying before, to make sure any misunderstanding wasn't my fault, and if it was my fault, why did I make that mistake, and how can I get back onto her thought path, and the memory we were sharing a second ago.  "I'm just saying," she continues, "As a doula, I've ushered into the world a ton of kids and can't tell you how many times I hear parents say how glad they are to have a biological kid, with their features and personality traits and all."  She settles her purse, her backpack, and her U-pillow down on my jacket between us and takes a sip of her lukewarm coffee.  She flew in last night from the East Coast.  She decided to spend one layover day here at home, before driving off to a Tahoe trip with old high school friends.

I take a sip from my water bottle.  "Oh, I've saved about half of what I need, half of the average cost that my research says it could be."

"Like, Google research?" she asks, her eyebrows raised and her head tilted slightly to the side.  I look at her. Somewhere in me I know she's pushing me, testing something that I will only understand years later, doing an Little Sis.  She stares at me.  I open my mouth to search for a reply, but she continues: "If you're serious about a family, you really have to take it more seriously than just googling."

My hands are warm, and the roots are too far away, so instead I subtly glance behind me and reach out to touch the bark right where it meets the dirty pile of older, fallen leaves. I move smoothly and with my chin up, as though I'm just looking for a more comfortable position.  But beneath my hands I can feel the dark brown, gnarled roughness, and an acorn digs into a bone on the underside of my knuckle.  It's fully formed, I can feel, so it must have just matured to completion.  Red oaks take longer to mature than most.  I lean back more but nothing moves, nothing in the tree registers the pressure of my hand.  Nothing melts, no leaves even seem to soften against the heat of my skin.  It's that powerful, or I'm that small.  Sometimes a thing is so big it seems invisible, like mountains against skyline, or the ground we walk on, or the air we breathe.  "Dad used to play hide-and-seek with us right here.  I can’t imagine a better way to spend a sunny weekend day."

"What?  Here?"  

One breath to stay chill, and a measured look up into the underside of the top of the tree.  There are layers of purpose up there, I remember, and this one is where the flatter, shaded leaves wait for the smaller, sun-satiated, outer layer to bounce some of that energy back towards them. When we would go hunting for treasure, Big Red’s smaller leaves were always the more interesting ones to find on the ground, and also the more prevalent.  In my head now, the dull buzz has broken up into thuds, and I have to blink again before I can admit that she has a point.  I know I'm not acting like her normal.  "Yes, this tree here."  

And without missing a beat, or discarding all of mine, she says, "See?  You're taking it seriously.  It really doesn't seem like you know what you want and a baby is no joke."  

"No, Little Sis, it was just, I don't know, I was just thinking too quickly, like I do, and it just felt related, to what you were saying, like a metaphor, or I just mean --"

"That's not life, Deane.  You're just sitting around and have nothing to show for it.” 

"I'm not just sitting around, I'm working through things and trying things out.  Learning a hell of a lot about myself--"

"You're not something until you DO it.  You're not a writer until you write, you're not a mother until you do the work, and you're not free until you get your own life outside of this place."  I know what she means, and she’s not talking about the park.  She talking about Berkeley in general, about where we grew up, and about our parents.  The buzzing fire has burned a tunnel straight through my senses and into her.  But she’s on a roll and continues:  "Wake up, Deane.  My whole life changed when Emerson came into it.  She became the most important thing in my world, and everything else just like stopped and became meaningless if it wasn't for her.  I mean FOR her.  Nothing else made any sense unless it reflected her light."

"I know, of course.  She's my niece--"

"And I'm only here to see you because I care about you and worry about you staying here, in this environment. You really have to live your own life-- you can't find new function in the old dysfunction-- you have to find what makes you happy and what you're passionate about and run with it-- but you can't just--"

"Little Sis I know I know of course I get it please!"  

"Uh."  She sighs, frustrated, and looks out across the grass.  I can't keep staring at her, I know, because she'll quickly hate the heat of it all, so I look down and out and around, trying to force my flame onto something else, anything besides her. My cheeks are flushed as I try to play it cool.

Later, I will hear her stream directives at me.  Later, I will see the pain in her face as she works herself up to mentioning “this place.”  Later is when I will think of all the ways she is wrong, about writing, about motherhood, about me.  And later is when I will understand how much Little Sis is telling me something important about my baby sister.  "Jeez," is what I say now, as I try to lift the side of my mouth. "You're totally right, I know.  Everything. Yes. My mind is just slow or off right now, ok?  I'm just tired after picking you up last night."  The less the better at this point.  And the more even the pace the more together I come off to her.  "You want some water?" I use my bottle as an excuse to punctuate the point with a direct address.  

"No. Thanks, though."  I put the bottle back down.  "You know I just care about you, right?"  She's offering me a way back, and I'll take anything;  If she's good, then the world is sturdy.  

"Yeah," I reply, and watch her face soften and her lips purse in a kind of wry smile.  I've made it back onto her path.  "Wanna keep walking?  I think the wind's picking up soon, hmm."  There's no wind, I catch myself, but I am slow.  The buzzing is gone, and her face is relaxed, the earth is cold.  She agrees to move along, so I must have said the right thing.  

We gather our things and stand.  I throw my large jacket over my shoulders and wipe the dirt and wet leaves from my hands.  My foot kicks an acorn over a root.  Little Sis picks some brown leaves out her dark blonde hair and adjusts the sweater that's tied around her waist so it better cushions the backpack on her hips.  As I watch her take the final sips of her cold coffee and strut off for the nearest trashcan, I realize she seems small to me, maybe farther away.  There’s a chunk of dirt that I can’t get out from under my finger, and some new clouds from the west have snuck in to steal my warmth, and make me wish for a scarf.  But Little Sis knows what to do, so I catch up, to stick by her side.  The oak trees we pass on our way out are native to this part of the world, and there are so many kinds of oaks.  Maybe this one’s a California black oak.