I spent much of my summers as a child climbing the branches or playing in the shade of the olive tree in my front yard. In elementary school I idiotically carved the initials of all my best friends into some of its branches; idiotic in two ways because that seriously harms the tree, and because as a youngster I didn't realize that friendships have a tendency to fade away. Did not mean to sound bitter about the last point, but haven't you spoken to a childhood friend of yours whom you realize you now have nothing in common with except for old playground and classroom memories? It's weird but also inevitable, and not a bad thing. Good thing is that as the tree ages, the carvings fade also. I found that because I've gotten so big it was harder for me to maneuver myself up and down the tree, and I couldn't believe that I'd sit up there and read a book comfortably for short spells, either. This tree was actually one of two - the second one was planted on the other side of the walkway up to the front door but by the time we'd moved in it was a dead skeleton, so we chopped it down and had the stump in the backyard for a time. In recent years our olive tree seems to have suffered a blight - the olives come out all mottled instead of perfectly green and smooth to plump and purply-black. It kind of pains me to see it like this. Sometimes wasps like to nest in it, and I noticed that a young olive sapling is growing right out of its roots, and I wonder if we let it grow if it will grow healthier. I guess then that what I've observed is that change is constant, if not gradual, and everything is subject to it.
