Blue Friday: Can't Let Go

This unremarkable cherry tree has been a part of my life as long as I can remember.

When I was young it had two other boughs going off in different directions, and the whole thing was sufficiently big and strong enough to support a treehouse that my father built out of reclaimed wood. The treehouse had a door on the side facing the farmer's field at the end of the garden, and a little hatch on the garden side that you could climb out and from there, grabbing hold of a stub of branch that just happened to be in the perfect place, swing out and drop down to the grass below. It felt massive, that drop, but can't have been much more than six or seven feet. Over time, the skeletal frames of very old and very broken TV sets were acquired from who knows where, and carted up into the treehouse. There, I would occupy myself removing the glass vacuum tubes (for yes, these were pre-transistor), and consider myself quite the scientist or, perhaps, an inventor.

Every summer, we'd get the big ladder out of the shed, unfold it to its maximum length, and clamber up and over the tree (and treehouse), picking cherries, trying to get the best of the crop before the birds did. I can still feel the sun-warmed felt of the treehouse roof under my fingertips, and the sticky spots where birds had deposited cherry stones.

When my dog died after a short illness, I was heartbroken and had the day off school, despite being in what would now be called Year 11. We buried him under the tree that evening. Dad had called in a favour from someone at work, and came home with a small, simple cross made from two pieces of aluminium, riveted together in the middle. It still marks the spot.

As I got older, the treehouse came down and, later, so did two of the boughs, as they became increasingly unstable and precarious in high winds. And no-one has picked cherries from this tree in a very long time now, except maybe the birds. Even they don't get many - it's almost like the tree has no more fruit to give.

The tree still stands though, for now, and still manages a decent show of blossom every year. I marvel at its longevity and, as I mow around it on visits to see my folks, drift back through the years looking at my dog's tarnished silver cross. Inevitably there will come a time, in the not-too-distant future, when this tree is not a part of my life any more, except in memory. But for now, and until then, it still casts spells as well as shadows.

This is Can't Let Go by The Divine Comedy, from last year's album Rainy Sunday Afternoon.