Trees

I love trees.

I remember thinking of them as friends when I was little, and pictured them protecting our house as they surrounded it. I had specific trees I really liked in the forest, and my favorite place was this area where a bunch of dead trees had fallen together and formed a little shelter that looked like a teepee. I remember going there with my brother and friends.

I love aspens the most.

I love the mountains in fall. When the wind blows the brittle about-to-fall leaves rustle and whisper and speak. There is something haunting about groves of aspen trees, with their bone white bark and the eyes that cover them. They see everything.

There’s a story called The Man Whom the Trees Loved by Algernon Blackwood. In it, the trees slowly close in on the house of this man who loves them. The slow, collective advancement is somewhat terrifying, and speaks to collective sense of being we feel when we are in the forest.

I’ve read articles that talk about how trees may actually be one giant organism with a common root structure. Individuals, yet deeply connected below the surface.

If only that applied to us as humans somehow…