Baring My Tree-Hugger Soul
Keeley’s Write More in 2023 Challenge
Today’s prompt in Keeley Schroder’s Write More in 2023 Challenge is:
If you were a plant, what would you be, and why?
That’s a tough one. I adore plants.
Houseplants — not so much. I haven’t had those in years. I traded them for … cats.
Herbs. I’ve long loved herbs of all sorts. I even had a small herb and garden store twenty years ago. I’ve always had herbs in my yard. Roses. Zinnias. Lilies. Irises. So many flowering plants — and many that never produce a single bloom.
What plant would I be?
I had no earthly idea what I wanted to answer.
Then I read Autistic Widower’s challenge story: If I were a Plant, What Would I Choose to Be? He started running through a list of possibilities, starting with a triffid, then moved to this:
So what else might I choose?
Life as a tree
A tree! That’s it. That’s what I’d be.
I’d long held an affinity for trees, and secretly thought of myself as a tree-hugger.
In fact, I truly am a tree-hugger. Not that I admit it many people. In fact, nary a soul until right now.
After I’d moved to Texas, I’d joined a paranormal group that had many ‘ghosthunters’ in it. We spent many nights out at small local cemeteries. My friends had much of the equipment used in paranormal research. I had a camera.
We were in search of evidence of life outside of this earthly realm. Cameras can catch a lot of unexplained phenomena. A lot of orbs — the small circular parts caught by film not seen by the naked eye. But you can’t always trust that as evidence. A lot of the time it’s simply dust or flying insects.
A lot of the people had recorders to try to catch EVP -Electronic Voice Phenomena. I never tried to do that. The audio part never interested me.
A few of the people in the group had other abilities to connect with planes outside our physical realm. Not me.
One night I got bored. Everyone else wandered all over Mt. Gilead cemetery. I didn’t feel like taking any more pictures. I leaned up against a towering oak tree, one so big I couldn’t even put my arms around its girth. I leaned back, watching the dotted lights of cameras and flashlights flickering about the grounds.
Hmmmm….plants have energy. Just like people. I wonder if I can feel a tree’s energy?
Next thing I knew, I was hugging the massive oak.
Just being still and tuning into the tree, I could feel it. A very, very low energy.
No — I wasn’t drunk or high. I don’t partake in those substances. (Any more.)
Soon I was moving around, hugging different trees. They all felt slightly different.
Then my friends started to wander back my way, interrupting my communing with my bark covered buddies. That ended my tree hugging for the night.
So, if I had to pick, I’d choose being a tree.
Bernie Pullen, Katie Michaelson, Brett Jenae Tomlin, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, Adrienne Beaumont, Autistic Widower (“AJ”), The Sturg, Robert G. Longpré — [he/him] — Canadian métis, Karen Schwartz, NancyO, Keeley Schroder
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