I rub my fingertips across each other, trying to dispel the pine sap’s stick. I succeed in dispersing its adhesion across my hands. The decrease in intensity turns the adhesive from an active issue to a background annoyance.
I can feel the air currents around me, though weakly through my cloak of needles. Their distinctive smell is faint but ever present, a fan’s background hum of aroma. The wind picks up, rustles branches, but its voice is still hushed in my prickly haven.
My legs dangle, swinging gently back and forth, my arm holding a branch above my head. I shift so my back is to the trunk, my right leg wedges into a branch and my arms are no longer needed to feel secure. I am supported by the wall of wood behind me; it is stoic in its firmness. I’m embraced by steady arms of wood.
The world keeps on spinning beneath me. I’m invisible. I’m perched in a nest all of my own. My thoughts are free to rise up and up, helium balloons off into the sky. I peer down from my satellite, my telescopic view sharp, precise—yet active only until I step away from my floating submarine’s periscope.
My descent will be safe, speed but not as vigorous as my ferocious ascent: I flew, propelled by slingshot arms up a familiar path all the way up and up until I stopped. Settled. Slowly. Finding comfortable positioning—slowing down, breathing. Peeling the pine bark from my palms.
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