I sit here on this ground that helps support me, it has allowed me to grow and watch the ever changing way of the world I live in. My truck grows true with each and every passing year. My leaves of mahogany stretch wide from my long arms. My tallest branch reaches upward while waving a passing “hello” in the wind. I watch as the season’s change, to the hot summer days of children hiding in my shade while the sun beats down upon them; to the days of fall of when colors set in around me, growing riper everyday’s as we bask in what’s left of the comfortable temperature. I change as the season of fall turns to winter, for I lose my leaves that gather at my feet. Deep dark leaves cover my roots also known as my feet. As this process takes place I ready myself for a long sleep ahead during this brutal season. My only hopes are no to be awakened by the blustering winter winds that blow viciously through my leaves. These winds are what every single of my kind fear, the one that can over take us, pushing us, and pulling at us. I can only wait till I can wake and stretch my arms high above my head while I take in the hearty spring rain. Finally as I awake I stretch as planned and begin to loosen my limbs for the warm spring rain to wash me of the winter’s harshness. I grow even more as the warm rain flues me and readies me to start the process over in my long but to short sometimes life. What am I you ask? I am the Japanese Maple in a young teenage girls life.