the way trees tell time

an afternoon spent with new company

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i heard the rush of the wind as it trickled through the trees. the image of a car rolling up a hill washed its reflection through the window. a collage of images laid before me. which was mine to touch?

i kept my hair in two tight schoolgirl braids. that periodically through the day grew fuzzier, looser, and more wild. yet the hair ties at the root stayed firm and in place. now at 5pm, i needed to free myself from their tether.

my bare feet lightly stuck to the wood floor as i walked through the house. the whisper of the trees called to me, so i pulled up a chair to listen. with my laptop of course. to transcribe any of their messages.

but there’s one thing about purely listening, and one thing about listening just to be able to talk.

was i too eager to write when the listening hadn’t been quite finished yet? any conversation with someone who was too eager to talk — too eager to talk to listen — was usually quite miserable. i didn’t want to be of that disservice to the trees. to the trees who were so gently speaking to me.

slowly, i started to take off all of my clothes. until i was left in my underwear.

the trees told me of all the adventures they’d taken. the many lifetimes they’d lived and how many rotations of the earth they must have lived through. they told time differently though. they didn’t go by years, they went by days.

i asked, why not go by the seasons? and after each rotation of seasons, to collect time by each year? like we humans do. but they said no, they didn’t look at it that way. they looked at each day as it would come, and if for some reason that day grew hotter than the rest, then that was the mood of that specific day. i asked it of its brothers and sisters, other plants who came annually, perennially. and they simply shrugged their shoulders and said, we have no use to tell the time of the future. all that matters is the day. the day which will turn into the night. and we continue on again.

i liked their way of thinking. i’d wished more of our society could operate in that way. living only in the nourishment of the present. yet here we were — together — me and the trees, operating side by side. maybe our societies weren’t so separate after all? what if i lept off from my human ledge and fully entered the world of the trees? who could really stop me? who could really be able to tell, at least from the outside, that i was operating the way the trees would like to tell time?

tell time. what of time is there to tell?

so much. everything.

i got up from my seat to go outside and listen more.

i walked towards them, to pay close attention to everything they were saying. i watched the rustling of their leaves and picked up on the differentiations of each of their characters. i took in who was more outgoing, more motherly, more wise. i opened myself, so that these images, could collect and lay themselves within me. these pockets of time spent, eyes up at their endearing size, listening to their stories — hoping that in some way, i could keep a space for them inside of me. so, i could bring them with me to my corner of society. or how their society, their way of time-telling, could live inside of me.

i asked them if it was okay if i left, if i went to go write about what they had told me.

they smiled, and said yes.

i looked back at them, giddily, and ran inside.