I’m not afraid of climbing trees - even after losing my best friend, a majestic maple that guarded our house like an armored knight.
The name on my birth certificate reads Maclyn Elizabeth Mills, but ever since I can remember, people have called me Mac.
Tree-lying started when I was eight and ended three years later when it became tree-sitting because the hard branch hurt my new, my changing, my (you know, boo--)…. Dad had the tree uprooted two weeks before I turned thirteen, said it had some terminal disease. Such are the problems of the female tree-lier.
So I adopted this rule: No Tree’s Too Tall
Those are my words, the words of a sometimes confused thirteen-year-old girl, daughter of a behind-the-times dad and one lipstick-wearing mom, sister of four protective brothers, and best friend to the smartest girl on the West Coast.
I take what life hands me and move forward. So what that the cutest guy on the block might not like girls. So what that Joe Basketball still thinks playing sports is the ultimate way to spend his time. So what if I take the world seriously. So what.
It’s the world that better watch out. Not me.