As the first snow of winter began to fall, I stood in the garden and breathed, softly, softly. Every flake was a huddle of water droplets clinging together, slow-drifting to the waiting earth. I stood and let memories fall with the snow, one after another.
Memories through the years of illness, lying on my back amid the snow, right here, under the empty maple. Sitting upright even for a few minutes sent me reeling. So here I lay, flat on my back on a cold carpet of white, water soaking through the back of my coat.
It was always worth it.
This year, the snow brings with it the urge to move, and I do, purely because – joy upon joy – I can. Out the front door, down the street, flakes swirling around my form.
I go and visit my tree friend. She is an enormous crab apple rising out of the earth at the end of our road, exactly the distance I can walk without dizziness or fatigue, around a hundred metres. Nestled in a little pocket of wildness between streets, she is ancient witness to a steady stream of people taking the cut up to Sainsbury’s.
In spring and summer you can stand within the dome of her branches, engulfed in a chapel of green. One year I took a chair to sit beneath her as blossoms fell all around me, a tumbling cascade of pleasure a little like snow.
I have come to know her very well. When you cannot walk far and you cannot walk fast, there is a vivid preciousness to every moment outdoors. You want to connect, not far and fast, but intimately, with everything around you.
It is a strange gift illness brings, the desire to savour everything. A rampant awareness of what it is to be alive.
When I visit the tree I run my hand across her bark, press my forehead to the thick trunk, held safe. I listen for the sweet lines of her sap song.
I used to do it furtively, well-conscious of social oddity. Over time her calming presence brought me bold. I stopped caring about the thoughts of people walking past on the path.
I began to think, how lovely it would be if they were to see me so present and so calm and be inspired to let down their guards; drop everything to go and connect with a tree.
Being different becomes a gift I give to the people all around me.
We all need it, don’t we? Permission to step outside the boxes in which our lives have been drawn. To keep reminding each other to take down the walls and be free.
My tree friend is changed, now. Last year, her branches grew so heavy and so full that the trunk split. One arc of my green chapel fell in a great swathe to the ground.
I grieved, sure she would be cut down. When you look inside the chasm, you can see the rot. But the council and the landowner bicker over responsibility, so she still's alive. For once I am grateful for bureaucratic inefficiency.
So here I am, walking amongst the soft magic of sleek snow, my mind aplay with memories, when I veer around the corner and I see her.
Curious, alive, my mind opens wide…
I see her, suddenly, as me.
I see her fallen branch, lying loose at an odd angle. Her weight falling back to the ground. And I see myself, horizontal where I should be vertical.
A flat line to the earth.
Lying on my back at the park, lying on my back in the woods. On the hard stones of a shingle beach. My life as a horizontal line.
What a strange life; a strange, strange life.
And yet.
Come and see the tree with me, let's get close. Because she shows in a way that cannot be ignored, that even when your life runs contrary to everybody else’s, it has a value that cannot be put out.
And your differentness creates change.
For that fallen branch has created an ecosystem all of its own. It is luscious with life. Amidst all the carefully mown, cultured grass around it, life within the fold of its branches is jagged and it is wild.
Grasses rise tall to the sky. Bronzed stems of cow parsley stand erect. Moss humps itself over tender twigs, where apples still fruit in summer.
Creatures unseen rustle inside this safe harbour. Birds flick in and flick out. There’s a lot of life in there.
There’s a lot of life in here.
So remember the lifeblood as it sings in your veins. However you’re different, a little odd, a little weird… perhaps you’re a beacon. A beacon of a different way of being alive.
Nobody thrives inside a box. We all need people who take down our walls.
Perhaps someone will see you place your forehead to a tree. And they'll put down their shopping, their frantic hustling through life, and they’ll meet you.
Palms to the tree.
What a lovely writing masterpiece! Congratulations for pouring your journey and heart in this writing and sharing this amazing tree.🌀💕🙌
Trees can teach us so much.
I went to visit the oldest trees in the world. It was ....
Well, my poem "Bristlecone" was the best I could do to express it.
I love the way you describe new life arising where the branch has fallen. Nature wastes nothing.