When I was just 4, I went out in the backyard and climbed a tree. It was near the house. A 2-story. What I remember is impossible. I got up pretty high and saw a branch-path that led to the high roof. I took it, and achieved the roof, and sat there, utterly triumphant, surveying everything from my new position.

It was then that I realized I had apparently ‘walked’ across the single long upper branch that led to the roof. But the only branch near the roof at all -was a nearly horizontal five foot extension less than an inch in diameter-.

There was absolutely no way it could have supported me. Frankly, I do not think it would have supported a housecat. And the nearest decently sized branch was six feet from me along that thin tube of living wood.

I got to the roof, and there was, literally, no way down; none.

And here’s the forkking problem: this adventure became a defining moment in the establishment of my character, and was little more than a taste of things to come.

Impossible heights.

No way down.