When I was ten years old, I climbed a tree with my best friend every day of the summer.
Its lower branches (all seven of them) began spreading within a foot or two of the the ground and each of them was thicker than the circumference of the two of us when we hugged each other. The branches grew in a way that made comfy seats for us when we got tired of pretending we were on board a ship fighting pirates. They grew up and up and up and sprouted smaller branches and then leaves which kept us cool in the middle of a 1960 Ohio summer.
When I was ten years old, I climbed a tree with my best friend every day of the summer.
Not every day, you protest, after doing some grown-up calucations, because your friend went to her camp for four weeks and you went to your camp for two weeks.
Not even most days, you protest, after doing some more grown-up calculations, because some days it rained and some days you or your friend was sick and some days you played cards or board games and some days you went to visit relatives in other states and some days you had big fights and didn’t talk to each other.
Only, at most, A FEW days, you protest, after doing your grown-up calculations. Only a few days did you spend climbing a tree with your best friend the summer you were both ten.
To which I would respond that your calculations are all wrong. Every ten-year-old knows that a few lazy summer days grow magically into “we always….” Every ten-year-old knows that time runs slowly and an event repeated three times is as established, and as comforting to recall, as a church liturgy. Every ten-year-old knows the things that always, always happened…that happened every day…
When I was ten years old, I climbed a tree with my best friend every day of the summer.