At the end of last winter I noticed this tree: a slim, high horse chestnut on the edge of my town. In summer its leaves gave it an hourglass shape. September ignited it. October, I showed my daughter its spiky conker capsules and the flawless autumn-shine of what was inside. In November’s first weeks I saw more of the sky through its branches each visit, its presence emaciating, the clarity of its skeleton crisping with every wintering day.
Now it’s naked of leaves, and I notice what I saw last winter: the strange trunk architecture, split like a tuning fork. My eyes trace each. One trunk lean and spurless, the other suggesting possibility. Suddenly I’m regarding this tree like a climber might suss a rock route, “on sight”. I find myself wondering how high I could climb into it, and which would give first: the route, or my nerve.
Winter trees are as near to rock as trees get. But trees are not like rock. Scale one, you scale something with the subtle compliance and tactility of a living thing, versus rock’s unrelenting austerity. Close, it smells warm even on a day that started with frost. Rock you grasp, fighting its cold indifference; trees you take hold of, hoist yourself into, embrace, balance on.
Rockfaces can be hundreds of times higher, but here even a little height feels giddying from this novel take. I find myself craving a weighty ridge, instead of this teetering organic scaffold. Would leaves help? Probably not. The unnerving view is below my feet, not the outlook from the branches.
Danger asserts. Not like mountain danger, with its macho justification-cliches: like, the closer you are to death, the more alive you feel. Climb a tree in winter and you’re clinging to a thing that itself feels barely clinging to life. Prescient, this. According to recent media reports, between leaf moth and bleeding canker disease, horse chestnuts could face extinction.
I climb down, and look up. From ground level it looks like just a tree looks. But a strange thought about the wilted leaves at my feet: I’ve climbed into where they fell from. I hope this tree lives to shed many more leaves. The odd climber, too.
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