Skinscript (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skinscript) wrote2006-11-30 10:26 pm
skinscript) wrote2006-11-30 10:26 pm
Entry tags:
The Trees
My house backs onto a forest. It is a small forest, but a real one, with trees hundreds of years old, forest animals, a marsh, lovely birds. From my bedroom, standing, you can see a wonderful half-wild worlds. Right now, in winter, the trees have all shed their leaves, and their branches are stark straight lines raking the sky. Since most of the ones lining my backyard are beeches, they are straight and tall.
Last night it was quite cloudy, and the lights of the city reflected off the cloud cover, turning it silver. From my bed, staring through the window, the branches of the beeches were silhouetted, black against silver. There was a light rain, and the trees were absolutely, utterly still. Even at the very tips, they were motionless.
I closed my eyes, so tired and so despairing. When I opened them again, the trees were in motion. It was a hypnotising pendulous sway - a dance of the branches against that surreal sky to the beat of my pulse. It was starkly beautiful, as if they were beckoning me to come out and play.
When I was young, my best friends were the trees. Whenever I needed to flee the realities of my life, whenever I needed to escape the fighting or the fists or the alcohol-fuelled joy of my house, I would go to the woods behind our house and I would climb the trees. Usually the white pines, huge sentinels well over a hundred fifty feet high, I'd race through the branches until I was in the crown, and there I would wrap my arms and legs around the tree and hug it tightly to my chest, press my cheek against the rough bark, and I would just concentrate on that slow soothing sway of the wood to the wind. I would imagine I felt the life flowing through the tree, that it embraced me as fervently as I did it. Many times I fell asleep in those trees, and never once did I fall.
I had pets, but unlike my dogs and cats and rabbits and even my tarantula, the trees required nothing at all of me. No food, no water, not even my presence. In the tops of the pines I was unconditionally accepted... and never missed when I was gone. That lack of demand was incredibly freeing.
Last night, I wanted to go out to the trees. But it was cold, and it was raining, and my husband was curled against my back. Instead, I closed my eyes again, thought about falling asleep. A moment later, my eyes were open again, and I was looking back out the window... and the trees were once again still.
I never did make it to sleep last night.
Last night it was quite cloudy, and the lights of the city reflected off the cloud cover, turning it silver. From my bed, staring through the window, the branches of the beeches were silhouetted, black against silver. There was a light rain, and the trees were absolutely, utterly still. Even at the very tips, they were motionless.
I closed my eyes, so tired and so despairing. When I opened them again, the trees were in motion. It was a hypnotising pendulous sway - a dance of the branches against that surreal sky to the beat of my pulse. It was starkly beautiful, as if they were beckoning me to come out and play.
When I was young, my best friends were the trees. Whenever I needed to flee the realities of my life, whenever I needed to escape the fighting or the fists or the alcohol-fuelled joy of my house, I would go to the woods behind our house and I would climb the trees. Usually the white pines, huge sentinels well over a hundred fifty feet high, I'd race through the branches until I was in the crown, and there I would wrap my arms and legs around the tree and hug it tightly to my chest, press my cheek against the rough bark, and I would just concentrate on that slow soothing sway of the wood to the wind. I would imagine I felt the life flowing through the tree, that it embraced me as fervently as I did it. Many times I fell asleep in those trees, and never once did I fall.
I had pets, but unlike my dogs and cats and rabbits and even my tarantula, the trees required nothing at all of me. No food, no water, not even my presence. In the tops of the pines I was unconditionally accepted... and never missed when I was gone. That lack of demand was incredibly freeing.
Last night, I wanted to go out to the trees. But it was cold, and it was raining, and my husband was curled against my back. Instead, I closed my eyes again, thought about falling asleep. A moment later, my eyes were open again, and I was looking back out the window... and the trees were once again still.
I never did make it to sleep last night.