Hello and welcome to Nudges, a weekly bit of writing about connecting with self, the land, and community. I’ve been playing around with a fiction piece lately, here is “part two.” (If you missed “part one,” you can find it at https://tinyurl.com/5jrvfv33.)
Sarah stared down at the letter in her hands. The dreams she’d been having about her new life with the money she’d make from the sale of the timber and the land battled in her mind with the pleas of her uncle. The momentum and emotional cost of all those meetings barreled over her, demanding she see it through.
The last few lines echoed through her mind, “Please, Sarah, continue to protect the integrity of this forest. Spend time among the trees. Imagine that I’m there with you, introducing you to old members of our family. Please get to know this place and protect it from future harm.” She felt that tug again, but stronger now; more urgent. She looked out the window. It was dark outside. The days were getting longer but the sun had recently set.
Sarah closed her eyes. She wished for the nudge to go away. She considered everything she had to gain if she let the property go, including this new burden gifted to her by her uncle. But her heart twisted. She considered what she’d have to live with if she didn’t at least consider Uncle Joe’s request. She stood up, grabbed her keys and coat, and headed for the door.
The driveway into to the property was harder to see at night, but Sarah spotted the hard-packed dirt drove her car into the forest. She turned off the ignition and the lights. What had felt a little creepy on her first visit was now absolutely terrifying. What had she been thinking, driving out here at night?! Oh, right, the final signing was due to happen in 12 hours and her uncle had pleaded that she spend time in the forest. This was her last chance, before the property belonged to someone else and the trees were cut down.
At that thought, she felt a stabbing in her heart and gut as if someone dear to her had just died. She bent over the wheel, clenching her arms to her chest and belly to ease the pain. Her resolve strengthened. This is obviously important, she thought. She took a deep breath, pulled the key from the ignition, and opened the door.
The air outside the car felt amazing. It was that perfect temperature and humidity that Sarah had always loved about this time of year. The warmth of the day was lingering as winter gave way to spring. Sarah closed the door and stepped around to the forest side of the car. She let her eyes adjust to the dark. The shapes of the trees were visible against the backdrop of stars. She considered her uncle’s description of the trees as “elders who help keep the world in balance.” She realized that the trees here were larger than the ones she saw elsewhere around the outskirts of town. She could see that a particularly large shadow loomed over the forest in the distance and wondered at the size of that tree. She turned the flashlight on in her phone and aimed it towards the forest.
All the towering shadows disappeared as the shrubs and saplings in the foreground lit up. Green and white buds were visible along the branches of several of the shrubby plants. Sarah aimed the light back and forth as she walked along the edge of the forest, looking for a way in. There was no path from the parking spot but she could see a trail on the other side of the shrubs, so she pushed her way through to it.
Inside the forest, the apprehension Sarah had been feeling washed off her. It was replaced with a reverent awe, like the feeling she’d had when she entered an ancient church in Holland, years ago. At the church, she thought the sensation must be the result of all those centuries of prayers and devotion, permeating the place with magic. Sarah wondered what caused the sensation here. Were the trees actually alive, aware, as her uncle had insinuated?
She felt a tug again and remembered that giant shadow. She turned off her light to see if she could find it again. After a few moments, her eyes adjusted back to the darkness and she was able to make out the silhouettes of the larger trees. She paced along the trail until she spotted that mammoth tree. She slid her feet forward, her hands outstretched in front of her, as she navigated towards the dark shape. A quote she’d recently heard flitted through her mind, “The shadows are where the truth lies.” She wondered what truth could possibly await her here.
Her shuffling steps encountered a few low roots, but her waving arms found no resistance as the dark shadow filled more and more of the sky. When she was close enough that she knew she’d be able to find it, Sarah turned her light back on and shone it back and forth across the area around her. She discovered she’d been walking along a path the whole time. The ground beneath her feet was bare with a scattering of decaying leaves. To either side, the landscape glowed with lumpy green moss poking through the detritus. Here and there, new plants were emerging. Off to the right there was a patch of short white flowers that reminded Sarah of triangles. Each plant had a single blossom with three triangular petals that formed a larger triangle. To the left of the path there was a thicket of spiky stalks with fuchsia-colored flowers. They looked like blackberry flowers, except for the color. The patch of perfectly spaced light brown stalks with a scattering of pink flowers reminded Sarah of her friend Judy’s Ikebana arrangements.
Sarah turned her light back towards the tree she’d been tracking through the darkness. The trunk was wider than her flashlight’s arc of light. The bark was deeply furrowed with thick layers jutting out from the trunk. A sweet, citrusy evergreen aroma wafted down and surrounded her. She breathed it in, pulling air in through her nose, filling her lungs as far as they could go before expelling it quickly to pull in another long draught. The smell was intoxicating. Sarah had the distinct feeling that the tree was communicating with her through scent. She didn’t know what it was trying to say, but she felt a welcoming energy from the tree. She felt seen and accepted in a way that she’d never experienced before.
Sarah approached the tree and placed her free hand on the trunk, tracing her fingers down the troughs, wanting to get as close to the heart of this creature as she could. She peered up. The trunk seemed to go on forever. She imagined being able to climb to other worlds, it was so tall. She walked around the base until she found a little alcove where the trunk widened out a bit, and she sat with her against the tree. A sweet calm crept into her back and shoulders, releasing the last of her tension. She felt her mind soften and she let her head rest back against the bark.
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