Trees

This is something I tapped out a while ago and found again today. The original reason why I wrote it is blowing in the wind, and it didn't really say what I was trying to get it to.

But in a strange way, I almost think that's what makes it more important to share or chronicle...because I think in missing the point, there may have been something else there worthwhile. The road twisted away from my destination but where I ended up wasn't a wasted journey, somehow.


I think reading a book is a little like seeing a tree. You see one, you go "Ooh that's a tree!" and you've got it. You see a few more you think "ooh okay, so this is how they can be different," and you nod to yourself and think...I know what a tree is, I could probably plant and raise one of my own.

So you take an acorn, any old acorn, and you put it in the soil in your garden. You water it and a while passes. A month, then a couple of seasons. You forget about the acorn for a while and figure in time it'll work itself out. Occasionally, you try to water it a little more but nothing like the care you gave it in the beginning.

One day you just get frustrated at why you're spending effort on a stupid tree anyway, and that's it. For a while.

Some time passes. It's not too long until summer swings around and you want something new to do. A friend drops by and talks about this big wonderful tree they saw, and you snort and roll your eyes a little. You could grow a tree, easy.

Except you didn't. And now you're curious.

So you take a walk. It's a long walk, and there may or may not have been a bus in between, but eventually you come to a park. And this is a park unlike any you've seen. The trees here are large, huge! Of many different types and many different different colours, some with leaves shining brightly, some crooked and spooky in the undergrowth. It's like a library of trees, and you can't get enough.

Eventually you head home, your head full of leaves and your hands full of acorns. You're inspired and uplifted, and you tell yourself that surely a tree will grow now.

But now you want an orchard.

You plant your trees and they take root, they spring under your care and guidance and start tilting upwards to the sun in little saplings. You have trees, you have all the trees. You have the best trees.

A neighbour passes a while later, and pauses to admire your trees. They're growing well, at least some of them, the ones that took root. It's a few but you're proud. You talk trees with your new friend and they point out a few things that could help the trees, while they also ask you about how you kept your lovely trees healthy. You talk, swapping ideas, and nod thoughtfully. You've learned there are many things you could do to improve them, and you're happy about that. You want your trees to grow well, and in all honesty, sometimes it just seemed too hard to take care of them properly.

Then the neighbour mentions having seen a mango tree nearby. Now this is intriguing. You've had mango, of course, but never seen the trees they came from. Indeed, you didn't even think about those trees at all. Your neighbour talks about how delicious the fruit was and how healthy the tree was, and you decide you have to go and see the tree for yourself.

The next day you hurry off, eager to have a look at this new tree. When you get to the little gardens you are blown away. It's a single tree in the gardens, not quite as tall as the trees you hope to grow your acorns into, but it's wonderfully lush and the fruits dangle healthily from their thin stalks. "Mango tree," you breathe, and sneak a bite of its fruit.

You hmm a little at the taste, it's not quite what you expected, but that's okay. You're glad you got to see the tree and taste the fruit, but you think maybe your oaks are more your style. Besides, you could happily play with acorns all day long.

The years pass and your acorns turn into spritely little trees, coming nicely into their own. They're not exactly what you envisioned, but they give you a lot of pleasure and bring a smile to your face and, you notice, the passers by, too.

One day a thoughtful stranger takes a walk down your road. They see your trees and are intrigued, and after talking to you for a while they tell you they really like your trees but point out that your front yard, much larger and spacious, could also do well with some trees. Some big ones.

You smile at the thought and it gets you thinking, but you shrug a little and feel like you like your trees as they are and that's probably enough. Also in the back of your mind you feel like you really have as much trees as anyone should have. They're not large or very visible but they're pretty and cute and you love them.

And that's the end of that, really.

Until one day, someone comes by and asks if you've ever seen a Redwood. You have no idea what a Redwood is, so you ask and they smile as they talk about the tallest trees they'd ever seen, in a beautiful forest they used to wander in. Now that's a new word to you. You nod and chat and you get the gist of what a forest is, and as the stranger moves on, you smile and wave at them.

But you chuckle to yourself as you watch them go. Why would you need to see a forest?

Why indeed.

S|ending

I saw the finale of an old show today and I realised that there are some endings I just don't like. Not because they're poorly thought out or somehow unrealistic, but because they hit the note of things being over. Just...done. And that leaves me in mourning over what's been lost.

I know things change and the world moves on, but when you take a cast of characters, people who've been through thick and thin, and you just...disband them, it's like saying "this time will never come again".

Every part of me seems to rebel against that simple reality. It's a timeless constant of the universe that moments once experienced, will never be repeated. There is no groundhog day, no replay of yesterday, and yet every time I delve into the unknown to bring forth something from my imagination, it's with the intent of bringing people together, through excitement and adventure and peril, to forge bonds, connections that will last, no matter what may come.

And when my stories do end, they end with an open door, a new frontier, a lifetime of adventure waiting.

I think in some part this is why my casts are often small. If I gather up four or six people it's hardly an ensemble, and if a pair of those characters end up together it rarely feels like a breaking when it's all over.

This feels like a strange revelation to me though. I've known for a while that what I really wish for is to have my loved ones close, to be in a time and space where all my friends are near and it would be a simple matter to meet up to do something, or simply chat. And all my endeavours, on some basic level, are towards the hope of achieving that.

But I wonder if that's simply a refusal of reality. Moreover, I wonder if that's the reason for some of my most dearly held ideals. The notion that the human race could achieve great things if it came together may still originate from this deep seated need to gather, to bond, to share and explore and build.

And I wonder if that's stupid, and childish, and immature. And that I need to wake up to the realities of the world and say "goodbye!" to yesterday and these deeply etched wounds on my heart.

...

I think...I think my answer is no.

Or maybe I just don't care.

If I am a child living as a man, then so be it. Because that child within believes in a world where everything good and joyful and wonderful can be manifest. Where we can build beyond our skies into our dreams, and find all those things we could never allow ourselves to believe in, waiting for us. Where we can wake up and look around and be at one with the world and all that dwells within it.

Where I can have a world where I don't have to say goodbye. Except for the hand of nature, or evil, or the smallness of hate.

And where one day, far in the future, perhaps those last two won't have to be counted.