Trees I’ve known
When I find
myself struggling with the chaos in my mind, my favorite place to go is a time
where I lived in trees. (Also, a time where I was in constant relationships with
horses and dogs. But that is another story)
I close my
eyes and breath deep and place myself somewhere in the house I grew up in. I
might take the time to dress myself and put on my favorite sneakers and grab a
couple carrots and an apple. Often these days, my need to find myself is too
great and I just assume all of that is in place already, and head right out the door onto the concrete
patio. I pull the sliding door shut silently because often I was leaving while
others in the house were still asleep. I take in a breath and taste the early
morning air. The musk of rotting leaves mixed with the fresh scent of evergreen
lay at the base, with high notes of stars. I can smell the brick of the house
front and the cedar shingles of the roof ledge over my head before I step out
into the moonlight.
From this
point there are two ways to go. Only as I am telling you this do I wonder which
I did most often. To the right off the patio was a pebbled walk that led to the
fence around our portion of the farmland our house was built on one corner of. To
the left was a creek and across the creek another fence and a pond. But if I veer
left after crossing the creek , I can follow a path first used by rabbits and
deer, made more distinctive by years of my own bare feet running along it. If I
follow that path along the creek, it puts me below my mother’s grooming shop in
a mess of small trees and bushes. Grape vines as big as my arm snake up around
a cluster of four or five trees creating a sturdy nest where I can climb up and sit nearly level with the back windows of
the shop. My mother and her assistants are unaware of my presence and I feel
quite covert and powerful braced in my wild nest, listening to their radio and
their conversations.
Tonight as I
lie here trying to settle my thoughts and my heart to get to sleep, I chose the
path to the right.
Even now, I can feel the rough surface of the concrete
slab my father built our house in the woods on. There is a big crack across one
side and I avoid it in the dark by memory, knowing the length of stride to miss
catching a toe in the crack and to hit the right stones in the path for the
smoothest steps. I can still smell the black charred rubbish in the burn barrel
as I pass. In one move I stick my right leg through the fence between rows of
barbed wire, tucking my back down as I squat and glide through, one foot on the
stone path, the other now on the soft crushed grass and weeds on the other side.
And there it
is. My tree. My Swiss Family Robinson’s Home-Away-From-Home.
Side note: I
am only now at sixty, coming back to the level of knowing and awareness I lived
in effortlessly as a child. Of course, as a child, I did not know how effortlessly
I moved through life, or that I just knew myself and my power. If I analyzed
it, I am sure I could pinpoint the era, or even perhaps the moment where I turned
a corner into darkness and lost sight of me. But what would be the point in
that?
My darling
husband, when I am struggling to choose a path or project, always asks me the
same thing, “what will give you the most energy?” He is
right to put it so. It takes enormous energy to life a life that is out of sync
with your soul. Anything you expend energy on which does not reciprocate, robs
you of your youthful elasticity. It makes you old.
So, I am
older. Maybe I am tired to the bone some days from the weight of life. That is
only because on those days, I am not awake. I am unconscious, lost in thought. (An
interesting phrase when you consider it, ‘lost in thought.’ I mean, that is
precisely the condition most of us spend our entire life in, right? We have
stories we have made up about who we are, what rolls we play in life, and what
things mean. Those become a never-ending narrative that loops in our subconscious
uninterrupted unless we intentionally look for a way out!) In that state, I am
not choosing. And to be stuck in that loop is such an energy drain. For me it
has often been similar to the dream where you are stuck in quicksand trying to
run. I know what it is like to be young and free and energetic, so when my
thoughts are heavy, when the chemicals my body is creating in response to
stress make every move a chore, I know I am not awake. To correct this, I take
the necessary moments to escape to my waking dream. I go back to my tree.
My tree was
(it still pains me to use that verb) an enormous oak. It had limbs that nearly touched
the ground, though they began seven or eight feet up the trunk. I could barely
get my arms around the trunk and the limbs where bigger than my torso. Two of them
began a foot or so apart and swooped down parallel, one nearly to the ground,
the other creating the perfect guiderail so I could jump upon the one and walk
up to the trunk where they began, using the other to balance. From there I would
climb up one or two limbs higher, depending on which way I wanted to be facing.
I can still feel the bark on the palms of my hands, the souls of my feet and
the backs of my thighs or on my knees, rough and yet each segment flat and
smooth.
I went there
to get away from other people and so to be alone, but I was never alone there. Various
bugs, a squirrel or two, and any number of small birds would often eventually accept
or forget my presence as I settled into whatever I was there to do. Often, I would
bring a notebook and pencil to write poems and songs or small stories. Sometimes
I would simply sit and listen to the neighborhood. Other times I needed to sing.
I took snacks and drinks sometimes and spent hours there, coming down to wander
in the field, returning to rest.
The thing
about a tree, the thing I knew instinctually but never had to think about, was
that they live. They use and create energy. They are connected to all that is
via their very cells. They breathe and clean the air. They use and replace
nutrients to the soil, and they are home to creatures great and small. This one
was home to me and I felt a sense of kinship with all trees though my constant
contact with this one.
When I sat
for hours in my tree, I often came there with emotions I did not know what to
do with. Like every family, mine had some unhealthy dynamics none of us had the
capacity to deal with. We were trapped by the mind patterns we each had
running, playing off of one another. And so, though we loved each other deeply,
we caused one another pain and frustration. So, I ran to my tree, my safe
harbor.
My tree, I believe,
knew me, sensed my pain, and offered me healing.
I think of
that tree often. Years ago, on a trip home to visit my mother, my sister and I
drove around to see the places we frequented as children. She warned me that a
lot had changed, and though I was sad to see the condition of the house our
father had built, I was mortified to see the new owners of the farmland had cut
off the bottom limbs of my tree so they could plant the field closer to it. I wanted
to bolt from the car, run through the field and throw my arms around it’s trunk
in my sorrow. But at that time, I was too proper, too restrained to trust and
follow my instincts. Instead, I sat in the back seat of her Jeep with my nose
pressed to the window and cried. Today, when I think of it, I feel ashamed. That
tree had always been there for me, and there I was, so close, and I was too
tangled up in my lack of personal awareness to overcome the imagined awkwardness
of my true self. I believe the tree knew I was there.
There are
always important side notes to any story. Here is the perfect example.
That farm,
that field, that tree… they were never mine. They belonged to Eldon. Eldon was the
spirit of that tree. Indeed, of all the land for acres around it. Eldon, and
his wife and their home, where my mother’s safe haven, her ‘Swiss Family
Robinson’s Home-Away-From-Home Tree house’, when she was a young girl. I was
the one to inherit that blessing.
Eldon created
a life in that neck of the woods that brought health and happiness and healing
and hope to all who were brought there. He was quiet and strong and wise, like
that oak tree. He held us and challenged us to grow strong as well.
When I was a
young mother, after many a hardship, setback, and trial, I came home to visit. Eldon
had cancer and he was in the hospital, so I went to visit him there. I don’t know
why I felt so timid and afraid when I stepped into his room. Here was a man who
had loved me since I was born, taught me some of life’s most important lessons,
and fed me some of the best food for my whole childhood, and I was afraid to go
to him when he was suffering.
Perhaps that
is what I was afraid of, suffering.
Suffering is
negative energy. When it is yours, it surrounds and traps you in. When it is
other’s, it reaches out it’s ugly arms to pull you in. It takes a strong man
and makes him appear weak.
There are at
least a handful of things I regret, that I would not hesitate to go back and
undo or re-do if I could.
Most prominent
in my heart these days, I would take an interest in my little sister and give
her the love and affection she needed. I would include her in my life more and
let her come with me to my tree. I would worry less about what other people
thought I should do or believe and more about what my daughter’s needed from me
personally. And I would go into Eldon’s room there at the hospital, get down on
my knees before him where he sat in his chair under the cold window, and thank him.
I would brush his soft silver hair back from his eyes, clean his glasses, hold
his soft, cool wrinkly hands, and tell him how much he meant to my life.
I can only
hope there will be trees in my future with which I can build relationships. I
have moved around a lot and often had to live in lifeless places without the luxury
of my own trees. I did manage to get back to the country years ago though, and
we still have a handful of trees in our little yard, but the two big elms had
already been butchered before I arrived. I pat them when I pass and thank them for
their sturdy presence and apologize for the treatment they have endured.
There will
be no other Eldon for me. But I have been intentionally, persistently,
developing myself into the sort of person who can be to someone like I was as a
girl, what he was to me. I look to build the sort of relationships that heal and
offer stability and hope. More and more I am able to remain awake, aware,
intentional. And that gives me energy.
I got that
from Eldon and his tree.
