Life and Limb

Go climb a tree. I mean that in a nice way. Go climb a tree, and pay attention to what happens to your body.

From the moment you tighten your fingers around the first tree branch and attempt to pull your own weight, you send an APB to your entire body. Every muscle must prepare to work, every system must engage. Resistance would be futile. All parts must focus and communicate to protect the whole and meet a common goal. As deliberate as it sounds, something about climbing comes naturally to us as humans. It’s one of our survival instincts.

By the time we feel the gentle pressure of a tree limb pushing back against the soles of our feet, our arms already know to reach for the next branch. Our eyes move up and around taking snapshots through the web of boughs so they can send the images back to our brains, where plans are calculated to keep us safe, but ever-climbing.

The first time Henry tried to climb a tree he was just shy of five years old, and my motherly instinct told me to stop him. Safety is a great concern for any parent, of course. Young children, especially, are just beginning to learn safety rules. They hardly have the real world experience to understand the importance of being mindful. Risk-taking is more fun, anyway, and it's a typical childhood characteristic—I had a fondness for walking on monkey bars (even with a broken elbow). For a child with ADHD, their signature distractibility and impulsiveness only adds to the concern when it comes to things like bike-riding or crossing a busy parking lot. Still, I could see in Henry’s eyes that he was determined to climb that tree. Instead of playing the mom card, I walked over to the giant pine, at the edge of one his favorite playgrounds, and just kept watch. I watched him pull his 37-lb. body upward, carefully selecting the safest branches, steadying his feet from time to time to take a break and evaluate the situation. All around us children played, yet somehow Henry was able to drown out the shouts and screams and attend to the task at hand.

When he got about nine or so feet high, I felt it was high enough. Just as I was about to say so, Henry stopped climbing on his own. He sat down and wrapped his legs around a fat branch, scooted himself backward until his tailbone was touching the tree trunk. Then, he leaned forward and laid his belly down on the branch. His cheek rested there, too. He dropped his arms and let them dangle in the open air. Then, he met my eyes and smiled down at me with a sweet, prideful grin.

He stayed there in silence for about two minutes until another little boy ran up and started a climb of his own. Henry pushed himself up, turned and carefully shimmied back down the tree. When he reached the bottom, I told him I though he was a born tree climber and gave him a high five. Then, he ran off, shouting again with his friends. It had all ended just as suddenly as it had begun. But I knew he had been revitalized by his experience. You see, in the same way that we are hard-wired to know how to climb, climbing itself is deeply gratifying.

It combines a wealth of the things we need to sustain our spirit: thrill of adventure, pride of facing a new challenge, satisfaction in hard work, and of course, a sense of accomplishment. In the end, it also provides peace of mind and new perspective. For those who climb regularly—whether trees or mountain-sides—you already know the secret. Climbing is a way we can access all the enriching sensations we crave in a more immediate way than we are able to in our daily lives and challenges. To have a healthy way to feel these things whenever we want to is important. It reminds us we can feel them, and when we look at life like a big giant tree, we get the sense that if we stay the course and get to the top of our personal climbs, it will be all the more rewarding. Just like a great view from a tree top.

For a child who struggles with attention to the point he is frustrated when he cannot complete things—tree climbing is a reminder that the ability to focus exists in him and that he will find a way to access it and control it at school, just the same we he does when he climbs ... that he already has what he needs to get where he wants to go. Nowadays, Henry climbs all the time, whenever he can. And it’s one of my favorite things to watch. I imagine us climbing together one day—sweating our way up some big old mountain out West where we can hang out on the side of a cliff and talk about that very first climb of his.

But for now, climbing belongs to him.