i’ve thought all night about what i wanted to say about my fascination with trees.

no, it didn’t keep me up at night, i just couldn’t sleep. think it has something to do with the flannel sheets we sleep in. i woke up at 1:30 feeling as if i were on fire, in a burning inferno (drama) and couldn’t go back to sleep. thinking about trees did not keep me up.

but back to trees…. for as long as i can remember, i’ve had a spiritual connection with trees. think of everything they have been through – how long it took them to grow so big, how stable and unmoving they are (for the most part). staring at trees when i’m laying in bed or snuggled on the couch makes me think of one of my favorite bible scriptures from John:

⁵I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him,bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

specifically, i remember a tree that was outside my apartment on lasalle and chestnut in chicago. the apartment was huge and old and my room was all the way in the back down this long hallway. it had tall ceilings and old hardwood floors and got really cold in the winter. i loved that room. my bed was against the wall. i lived here when 9-11 happened and afterwards is when i started praying about moving to texas. i remember laying on that bed earlier in the morning and looking out the window at this huge beautiful tree and thinking about needing stability (roots) and wanting to bear good fruit. i knew i wasn’t going to get there in chicago doing what i’ve always done. so i moved.

i also like this poem by joyce kilmer

TREES

by: Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

THINK that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

“Trees” was originally published in Trees and Other Poems. Joyce Kilmer. New York: George H. Doran Company, 1914.

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