Mesquite Bark

I don’t go to reunions. I have never been to one of any type and I don’t plan to in the future. I just throw away those requests for updates, the announced plans to have a reunion, and stuff… I have no interest I any alumni association. I have no old friends from high school or college, but I do have a small piece of bark I tore off the trunk of an old gnarled Mesquite tree.

There was once a rare day when I was able to visit my home town and also have at the same time the luxury of having half a day alone with my car. Like a far-ranging hunting dog I crossed as many old trails as I could fit in, savoring the smells of past moments that still lingered-imperceptible to all except to those who had made the trails themselves.

One of the places I went to visit on that day was my high school. I parked my car on one of the lots and walked around. Virtually no building had changed, they were just older like me. Every location brought back scenes like an overlaid replay on the current silent emptiness. The things I did-the discoveries I made-my view of myself and my place in the world preserved in minute detail. And in the middle of the campus stood an old mesquite tree--still there all these years. It still watched the young kids passing by like a river. The tree and I the only two living things that could remember how it was. I took a small sliver of one piece of its old rugged bark and put it in my pocket as a token of our reunion.

That piece of bark is somewhere in a box within boxes. A little box with simple, precious souvenirs.