No two fingerprints are alike. The same can be said of the journey of a writer. For myself, it started as an undergrad (business management) when in my final semester I took an elective, Creative Non- Fiction. Long story short, I had talent and learned writing tools and developed a “voice”. One of the keys was writing a blog. Surprisingly, I found this chilling relic (written in 2004).
As I enter the Autumn of life, I find myself seeking roots; like any tree they must be watered and fed nutrition. The water is served by words, the articulation of the snarled branches within my mind to something semi-cohesive on paper. Nutrition is in the form of searching for relics and nature, photos, and walks in all seasons. Time and travel have earmarked my memories, not just of faces, landmarks and erotica; but of trees.
For example, In Tokyo, when approaching the airport a remarkable blue-green forest grows as one, and suddenly a city, cosmopolitan; in Florida the first sight of a palm tree, leaning precariously, the waxy fronds almost bent over double. An erect birch tree, not double or triple trunked as is the norm, growing out of a crevice at Cadillac Mountain in Maine, it’s bark starkingly white interspersed with skinny black streaks.
The smell of a Blue Spruce I planted, a living organism, fueled by miracle- gro at first and growing like a beanstalk, second. The Japanese Red Maple whose blackish gray branches reach out at angles impossible for a human being. A sugar maple with a spigot and an old lopsided pale collecting its spawn. A London Plane Tree whose bark flaked off in huge ceiling tile sized pieces revealing a silvery texture. The large black walnut that dropped pong balls of green stickiness inside held a squirrel’s treasure. The owl I saw sitting atop a tree of unknown origin as I jogged through the woods at dusk, hooting its hello and goodbye.
Photographs of all my trees would have been nice for reference before the deforestation of the mind. In the meantime, I will revel and relish the winnowing by soaking up the sun and rain, and above all else enjoy the kaleidoscope that will be my brother each October or thereabouts, and search for the spastic climbing of the feeder branches, and the miracle of life each spring. This will keep me young at heart despite what father’s time says.
Without Wax,
J Gozzi
