Green.Wood.Roots

Next to trees, I don’t feel so alone.

Maybe it’s because of how much fresher the air feels in my lungs, or sweeter when I inhale and the lightness catches on my taste buds, or maybe it’s because I know that no matter how hard the sun is beating down, the trees will always have my back. The coolness underneath the palms fronds even got me asking, Mankind, where the hell was you at?

I love a jungle that reaches up and over me, surrounding the land like turbulent greenery. So very different from home, so far from my San Diego suburban city.  Yet makes me feel so at ease in the place right above my lungs, and further down in my once forgotten past life memory. When I see the roots in the ground, I remember my balance. Two feet, strong thighs, rock steady mind. When I look up into the face of a Mangrove legend whose life is much longer than mine, something inside of me knows that I must be correct and respect my elderly. They’ve run the badlands, they’ve withheld the storms. I am nothing, but I wish I could stand strong, like you, so damn cleverly. 

When I see the vines mapped out in the sky above me, I remember the veins in my blood and the strength in my bones; I remember how much life runs through me, starting from the tips of my toes. Rooted down so deep beneath the soil. Trees that surround me bring me peace of mind and when I walk down a path and feel the tips of their leaves reach out and touch me, chills trickle down my spine. I’ve felt it before; I don’t want it to stop; I know all my life I’ll feel it once more. My lush greenery, and trees above me, at least I know no matter how many people leave and haunt me, you will continue, running right beside me.

xoxox

Lindsay Reva