SHE

Talking to Trees

    While most kids had imaginary friends growing up whom they would play tea party with and/or hide-and-go-seek, SHE found from an early age that SHE preferred to talk to trees because of how they moved with the wind. SHE felt that SHE was understood. When playing with neighborhood friends, if SHE would feel uncomfortable, SHE'd find a tree which made her feel safe and hide beneath it, letting its branches cover and protect her. Her friends would call her weird and some version of anti-social. They would claim the only reason SHE stopped playing the game was because it wasn't by her rules when in reality all SHE wanted to do was feel safe. And this was how SHE found her own measure of safety.

    SHE was bullied a lot through her grade school years especially in elementary and middle school. So during recess or gym class when everyone had to play kickball outside—a game SHE despised because SHE wasn't good at it and it just gave her tormentors more ammo against her—SHE had figured how to kick the ball when it was her turn in such a way that someone would automatically catch it and she would be out. That way SHE didn't have to play anymore and could go and hide among the trees where SHE felt safe and secure.

    SHE would walk among them and touch their tough bark and soft leaves. SHE would ask them questions or just think of things like SHE wished SHE was in a different place and it always felt like the trees cared and swayed gently as if to acknowledge that SHE was in fact a part of this world. SHE hadn't put two and two together yet that SHE was a soul in a vessel but SHE was getting there. Here SHE wasn't an outcast, a weirdo, a stranger among humans; here SHE felt protected and understood.

    As SHE got older SHE understood that one of the factors of this natural understanding was her old friend, the wind. The one SHE was born with. The wind is what makes trees move and when SHE would get questions, SHE would watch the wind respond to them by moving the leaves, branches, and even the trees themselves. It was part of a much grander picture of the universe. And SHE started to understand her part in it but only through the passage of time and other experiences that changed everything for her.

    Remembering that unlike other kids who liked toys, parties, video games, fast food, and so forth, SHE was perfectly content within nature; such as in her own backyard, parks, woods, and the beach. If there were trees, grass, and solitude, SHE was at peace. SHE never understood why nature was so important to her until SHE became an adult. But it never left her. SHE could spend hours just staring at the trees and waiting for them to speak to her, to acknowledge her soul's needs.

    Not far from where SHE lived, right on the border with New York State, there was a park that was considered a giant sculptural garden that surrounded the headquarters of one of the largest soda conglomerates in the world; PepsiCo. While the park itself was humongous with many outlandish and neat looking sculptures, it also had paths that led into the woods where people could hike and take pictures of the wonderland of nature at its finest. SHE had been going to that park for over 20 years until it closed for renovations in 2012. It hasn't reopened yet so SHE waits.

    When SHE did go to that park, it was usually a spur of the moment thing when SHE needed time alone to think—all this happening in her adult life of course as when SHE was a child SHE couldn't drive on her own—and just be in the peacefulness of nature. It was there that in the early 2000s, SHE penned a poem about her relationship with nature and talking to trees. The poem is called "Nature Listens":

Leaves move with the

Gentle breeze

Whispering

Ever so softly

I will listen

All need wells up to speak

To cry out words

Of pain

Of memory

Sitting underneath years

Of silent experience

Thoughts

Indecisions

Trying to convince

Not to think

To dwell

Escape past the mind

And mouth

Whoosh

Out in the open

Nature listens

Calmly

Easily

There is no rush

For eternity

Unlike impatience

Lack of time

Of friends

Gentle wind wipes away worries

Brushes face as if to say

It's going to be alright

Stop thinking

Don't dwell

Live

But if going in

Tight

Narrow

Circumferences

Is a must

You are never alone

Truly

Nature always listens

    That poem made her understand herself more and what SHE contributed to the universe from her soul. Years later when SHE became blocked from all of her gifts and couldn't talk to trees anymore or feel the wind, SHE felt like she lost a part of herself so when it was returned to her on August 1st, 2015, SHE once again would go outside on her deck into her backyard every day and say hello to the trees and the wind. It was a rebirth not just of her health but of her being. SHE was one with the trees and the wind and this time as a full grown adult, SHE was no longer an outcast but a part of something so much bigger than those taunting kids. SHE was blessed.

Pinsky, Olga. "Nature listens". Out of the Abyss. August 7, 2008. Createspace.com. © All Rights Reserved.