As a child, I used to climb trees regularly. Sometimes, I would climb up, up, up among the crab apple blossoms until no one could spot me. Other times, I would stop lower down and linger among the scented flowers. I didn't give much thought about falling or not falling, until one day when I was climbing with my brother. I would have been 10 or 11. My brother was two years younger and famous (at least in our family) for his risk taking. He learned to swim early and well and soon gave up swim racing for surfing, and when that became tame, joined the adolescent boys jumping off the 1240' drawbridge into the river. He was the brave one. I was the tame, conservative older sister. I was sceptical then, one day that summer, when we climbed the crab apple tree and my brother got stuck. He told me so and I didn't believe him. I climbed down and went inside the house.
Shortly after, emergency vehicles raced into our driveway. The rescue personnel told us that neighbors had heard a child yelling for help and thought that someone was drowning in the river. I don't recall whether I revealed that I left my brother stuck in the tree but soon enough, the firemen discovered him sitting midway up the tree. The next day, the local newspaper ran an article with the headline "What goes up, must come down" and described the incident. I was mortified, and yet now, forty some years later, I realize the truth of that headline. What goes up, must come down. You either fall or you don't fall. I am not a believer in black and white dichotomies. I much prefer a continuum. However, if I am just plain stuck because I haven't moved to one outcome or another, it is that much more complicated when there are many choices. Sometimes simplicity helps. What I also realize is that I can chose to be stuck and I can just as easily ( okay...sometimes it hurts a bit like a band-aid coming off) choose to be unstuck. I can also choose to re frame my thoughts about that intermediate period when there is no action, and consider that I take action or no action when the time is right.
