I took a walk around my neighborhood while listening to music looking for something subtle yet unique to share with the class. After two whole rounds around the neighborhood, I couldn’t find anything interesting and was about to go back inside when I looked across my front lawn and I saw something that caught my eye. It was the old pine tree that stood next to my house from my neighbor’s house. I am sure everyone thinks of this tree as a regular old pine tree or sometimes a Christmas tree, and they would be somewhat right. 

So I decided to look further in and found out the name is actually classified as a conifer tree or cone-bearing and it is an evergreen which means its leaves stay on its branches even through the harsh winter seasons of the northeast. Its leaves are arranged singly along the spine of the leaf and it bears small roundish pine cones. Finally, after a few short Google searches and a quick youtube video, I found out the tree was a red spruce tree.

 I always remembered it being huge when I was a little kid running around and playing hide and seek in between its branches, even now it feels huge in comparison to what I remember it as. I decided to go up to the tree and closely inspect it and I felt a wave of nostalgia as I smelled the familiar pine smell of the tree and was careful not to touch the sticky tree sap on its trunk. Even though I grew up and forgot about this tree these past few years, the tree still stands tall and unchanging which felt comforting weirdly enough. No one has lived in my neighbor’s house for a while, the tree still seems to be healthy and growing and to me, it seems to be watching over everything and standing guard almost like a sentinel. To me, I like to call it a sentinel because a sentinel is defined as a person or thing that watches or stands as if watching which perfectly matches my idea of how tall and poised it always seems to be. Although as I grow older I feel a sense of relief now whenever I look outside my window and see that big tree across my yard.

~Nelson N