Reciprocal — Prompt — Nature

Oh, the Places You’ll Go…When your Medium friends send you there!

Nature Writing Prompt on ‘Reciprocal’

One little question.

One little prompt.

That’s all it takes from a Medium friend, and I’m spiraling back into the past. The wrinkles in my skin don’t exist anymore. I’m not about eight or nine years old, spending my afternoons reading books, climbing trees, and catching bees.

All because Sahil Patel wrote a story about a childhood tree and shared a prompt.

Growing up in Glendora, California, we lived next door to two elderly ladies — Bea and Pauline. They were housebound and never outside. But they had a huge yard filled with delightful plants and trees. We three youngsters were allowed to play in their yard. All it took was a quick dash through the walkway in the hedge between our houses and I was in a backyard filled with delightful nooks and crannies that I could explore to my heart’s content. I spent hours in their yard communing with nature, albeit I never thought of it in that way at the time.

Two magnificent orange trees graced the north side of the house, leftovers from the early citrus groves. They also had an apricot tree and a peach tree. When they fruited, we were always welcome to eat whatever we wanted. The peach tree never seemed to bear much fruit and what it did have was smaller than the peaches in the stores. But I remember devouring lots of apricots during the few weeks that they were ripe.

I spent many an afternoon climbing in the orange trees, whiling away the day perched on a sturdy branch. Bees swarmed both trees. They must have known I didn’t intend any harm. They never stung me.

One summer I received a plastic terrarium for a birthday gift. Sadly, no animals came with it. So, I filled it with my own ‘pets’. First, I filled it with some small branches from the orange tree, ones filled with fragrant blossoms. Then I started trapping some of the bees from the orange tree.

Alas, my early attempt at becoming a beekeeper was thwarted.

One afternoon, my mom left us with a babysitter. For what reason, I have no idea. We didn’t often have a babysitter, but on the few rare occasions we did, it was Kay Oliver, a teenager from our church.

Kay, being older and wiser, and oh, so responsible as a babysitter, thought that me collecting bees in a terrarium was dangerous.

She committed an heinous act. She opened the lid and let all my pet bees escape back into the wild.

I was furious.

So, I did the only thing I could think of doing to obtain justice.

As Kay headed in my direction, most likely trying to appease my offended sensibilities, I opened the waist high hose bib that was in the center of the yard, and I drenched her!

Now as an adult, I feel a little bad that I behaved like that that day. But not too much. If I had a chance to relive this moment and do it over, I’d probably do the same thing.

You don’t mess with a young girl and her pet bees!

Although now I realize that it’s a good thing Kay released the bees. I’d made sure to include branches with orange blossoms on them, so the bees would have something to ‘eat’. But I truly didn’t know anything about what they needed, so they would have perished in my little terrarium without proper care.

Kay saved the lives of my bee pets that day. But I didn’t know that then. But the memory of climbing the orange trees and sitting on their branches, the air filled with the fragrance of their blooms, lives with me all these years later, forever etched in my memory.

Those early years of tree climbing must have taken a hold of me. Trees still inspire me. I’ve written before about being a ‘secret tree hugger’. Although, it’s not a secret any longer. When your friends catch you in the cemetery hugging trees, just to feel what kind of energy they have, the cat is out of the bag then.

In the tree hugger story, where the prompt was “If you were a plant, what would you be, and why?”, I chose a tree.

Now that I’m older, and have gone through the process of losing my mother in 2020 and a better half in 2023, I’m more conscious of end of life decisions and am trying to look ahead at my own inevitable future of dying. Although I hope it’s not for many more years, it’s still going to happen one day. And I’d like to prepare for it ahead of time so that my boys don’t have to make final decisions.

One option available now is that you can purchase a bio-urn and have your ashes planted with a tree. I’m leaning towards that. So maybe one day I will truly become a tree. But not for many years yet. I still have too much to do here on Earth in this life. Including hugging and climbing more trees!

Thanks for the trip back in time, Sahil!

Sahil’s prompt is:

“Share a personal story or reflection about a tree that holds special significance in your life. It could be a childhood climbing tree, a tree under which you found solace, or a majestic tree you encountered during your travels. Explore the memories, emotions, and lessons that this tree has imprinted on your journey.”

Check out Sahil Patel’s story here to read his own childhood story, and see the details to respond to this prompt.

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