Growing Up Eighties, Nature Girl

Ann and I were opposites, but we shared the same imagination. I remember getting totally pissed when she told me that animals talked to her. I was so jealous and could not understand why the animals had chosen to talk to her instead of me, the child with the uncombed hair.

Interestingly, I recently watched an old home video in which my mother asks, “Did you comb your hair today, Holly?”
“No.”
“Are you planning to comb your hair today, Holly?”
“No,” me grinning from ear to ear because I thought for a moment that because I said that I wasn’t planning to comb my hair, my Mom wouldn’t make me. The thought made me happy.
Combing my hair was hard work, and I had been covering up the gigantic knots in my tresses (Mom calls them bird’s nests when they’re small, rat’s nests when they’re big) for a few days. I would comb only the top layer of my long, curly hair. It was rustic, okay? I wasn’t the one who decided to move the family to the country.
My hair was fitting for my attitude then and I really didn’t have time for such trivial matters like grooming. I had trees to climb and animals to talk to.

After a few months in the new house, we discovered what was then, to us, the best spot on the property. The gigantic tree was nestled in the corner of the lot, down the hill and then slightly uphill from the house, surrounded by younger trees, which were nearly surrounded by the field. A man named Cash owned the field and for unknown reasons we decided he was a bad guy. Thinking back, his name alone screams villain. The Evil Cash sometimes planted corn in the field (rows and rows upon acres and acres).
We named the new spot The Big Tree because it was a big tree. We were clearly clever.

Mom: Where are you going?
Girls: The Big Tree.
Nuf said.

The problem with the Big Tree was getting Ann into it. Ann liked to paint her nails and practice ballet. She liked to braid her hair in the reverse French braid. She was seriously girly and while I was also a girl, I had taken our move to the country rather seriously myself. I was Nature Girl.
Once in the Big Tree, Ann stayed in one place, holding on for dear life, while I explored higher altitudes. Once I found a place, a conversation like this would begin.
Holly: You should jump.
Ann: I’m not jumping. You jump.
Holly: Okay.

It’s possible that my clumsiness began with that first jump. I didn’t land on my feet. In fact, I rolled, head over heels, down the hill until my head found a nice rock to rest against.
Ann (I have no idea how she got down and now I’m starting to think that she jumped and am really pissed) runs to the house to get my Mom (a thirty second run, we were always close to the house) because I might be dead. But I wasn’t dead. I just had a new theory: You don’t always have to land on your feet to live. I realize now that my philosophical tendencies began at age seven. I’m putting that on my resume. Twenty years of experience in analyzing life.