The Cherry Tree Outside My Window

A Tale of Childhood Delight

She hated naps. She was four and so she hated naps. She didn’t want to lie still and quiet, tucked in under her Holly Hobbie blanket in a dim room, listening to the sound of her baby sister snoring softly in her crib, to the sound of her mother doing dishes and sweeping floors.

She didn’t want to try to sleep in her boring napping shorts and t-shirt; she wanted to be dressed in her Wonder Woman costume with it’s itchy sequins sewn to the edges and it’s large gold glitter W on the chest. She wanted to be outside. Riding her Spiderman 3-wheeler in the endless loop that circled the lawn of the apartment complex they lived in, until her feet were just a blur as they pushed the pedals. Digging in the dirt for earthworms. Looking for pale blue eggshells dropped from robin’s nests and garter snakes winding their way through the bushes and butterflies dipping down to the dandelions. She wanted to be lying on her back in the damp grass, picking out shapes in the clouds. She wanted to be swinging so so high, so high that her tummy tickled.

She didn’t want to take a nap.

But then they moved to the house in the middle of the alfalfa field. The log house with the screened-in porch and the chicken coop and the wildflowers and her very own swing. And the trees, all the beautiful trees. Big and small, pine and apple and cherry and oak. She could lie in her bed during her nap now, head resting on tiny folded arms, and stare out at the tree that grew outside her window. Just spindly branches, but she imagined shapes in them and made up stories about how bored the tree was. How it didn’t want to nap anymore, either.

One day, something truly magical happened. Small leaves and buds started to appear and it wasn’t long before it burst into brilliant pinks and whites. A cherry tree covered in blossoms. She could look out the window and imagine tiny pixies living there that danced along the branches as they tended to the blossoms. A whole world of tiny lives and it was all for her.

She imagined that at night, while she slept next to the window and dreamt of golden dragons and witches in tall hats and mice that talked and flying cars, the pixies worked their magic and that is why one day she awakened to blossoms crumpling around small greenish cherries.

Her mother told her to leave them alone, but she couldn’t resist and popped one into her mouth that afternoon, her lips curling at the bitterness. So she waited and watched every day as the green turned pinkish and finally to rich red ripeness. That day, she and her mother plucked the cherries from the tree, before the birds could pick it clean.

Now her naptime was filled with the sweet smells of cherry pies baking and cherry jam simmering in the huge pot on the old stove. She filled the quiet with whispered stories of the pixies retreating, tucking themselves in amongst the roots, to sleep and wait until the next spring brought the burst of pink and white blossoms again.

If you enjoyed this, you may also enjoy my poem about spring.