Big tree, little me

Underground, there's a massive network of existence that doesn't even register my puny presence.

Early on in the pandemic, I started a tradition of touching a tree every day. Just a quick stretch of my arm, a few seconds resting my hand on that sturdy bark, and then I’d move on, usually tugged forward by my dog. 

The tree touch wasn't so much about making sure I got out in nature, but to help me actually realize it when I was out in nature. To make sure that knowledge actually sunk in through my skin and made its way into the heart of me.

To make sure my mind stopped racing for just that split-second, if no other time. To help me stop thinking about all of the things I was doing wrong and all of the things that scared me.

Even when things were terrible I still made it outside every day. I realize what a privilege this is.

Too often in my life I’ve treated self-care like a checklist, powering through all of the things I’m supposed to do, like eating mostly plants, doing yoga before bed, weight-training every other day, no scrolling after dinner, and so on — without ever living in the moment I did those things.

Without ever feeling the joy those acts of self-care sent into my body.

Without understanding that what I experienced in the doing — and not the check mark at the end — was the entire point.

Also, in full transparency, I haven’t always followed the no scrolling after dinner rule. In my defense, there’s been a lot going on.

Maybe my hyper-vigilance doesn’t help anyone, but sometimes it’s all I can do.

It’s an ongoing theme of my life that I try to do good things so bad things won’t happen.

I take this to extremes sometimes. I need to research the hell out of something so it can’t get me. I need to watch my sick kid all night or they’ll get worse.

I need to stay alert during the flight so the plane won’t fall out of the sky.

It’s not just for me. It’s for everyone on board.

I remember once in my college years being in abject agony over how to bail on a house party I really wasn’t up to attending. I was talking it out with my sister, going over each excruciating detail, and hating myself more every second.

How could I do this to my friend? After I’d said I would go and they put all of that work into planning things? How selfish could I be?

My sister was sympathetic, but eventually she got real with me. “When I cancel on plans, I always assume the other person is a little relieved to have less work to do.” She shrugged. “I mean, it’s not like they’re throwing a whole party just for you to attend.”

Her words hit me like a bolt of lightning. That had NOT occurred to me.

It’s not like I thought all of those parties were being thrown for me — not exactly. But I did center my absence as some massive transgression that would be recalled over the ages.

That my friend would hate me.

Really, me not being there was probably a minor annoyance to other people, if they noticed at all.

Just like my presence doesn’t make that much of a difference.

Her reframing made me realize that my self-loathing was pretty self-obsessed.

I try to keep that in mind whenever I’m beating myself up over something I did. The world doesn’t revolve around you, I tell myself.

You’re not keeping the plane from crashing. There’s nothing you can do to keep that from happening.

I guess sometimes it’s more obvious why I can’t let go.

My third-grader has been sleeping with me a lot lately. She’s hit some big developmental milestone, and along with all of the cool new things she can do, her brain is punishing her with new fears.

Growing up can be so hard sometimes.

At night, her mind churns up one monster after the next. I’m tired and she’s tired and I am just so ready for my candle and my book and my man, but I have to remind myself that these are phases we all go through sometimes. As children and as parents.

I am grateful I get to hold her through this and I’m grateful to my husband for sleeping on the couch and I’m grateful my own parents always let us sleep on their bedroom carpet when we were scared.

Knowing you’re not alone at night is a gift I’m happy I get to pass on to the next generation.

A few nights ago, my baby told me she couldn’t fall asleep because if she did, we would all die.

I told her that I’d had the same thoughts over and over as a kid — as an adult — and my dire predictions never came true, that her brain was just tired so it was spitting out terrors.

She clutched my arm, her eyes wide in the dark. “Why would my mind do something so terrible to me?”

Phew. I’m still trying to make sense of that myself, sweetheart. All I can do is love you through it.

Put your hand on a tree and you can’t help but feel pulled by its solidity.

The thing is, for every part of that gentle giant you can see, there’s so much more underground, a whole world of roots and dirt, of nutrients and knowledge passed beneath your feet.

That great big network of existence doesn’t even register your tiny presence up above.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, I meet trees every day that have been here since before my great grandparents were born, since before cars and before Seattle and before this country and before colonizers came and fucked up everything.

They’ve seen it all, these dinosaurs among us. They’re not much impressed.

The trees have a different sense of time, and they have very little sense of me. Maybe I’m a gnat but probably I’m nothing at all.

Little me making one misstep, missing one party, falling asleep on one flight — that’s not even a whisper in the wind through their highest branches.

If my babies know I’ll hold them when they’re scared, if my friends know I’ll be there for them when it matters, if my man knows I’ll keep lighting that candle for him in the darkness long after these children have left our home — if I can leave those small imprints on the lives of those I love, then I actually have done a good thing.

I’ve done the best thing a human can do, the only thing a human can really do.

This world doesn’t exist for me. But I’m alive in it for this moment.

Some people take comfort from the stars, from that great expanse of glitter above our heads whispering something about our minute place in astrological time and space.

I’ve always found that vast universe too abstract and mysterious to offer me much solace.

Give me a tree to hold onto, for just a few beats of my heart. I can feel that great presence down to my marrow, and I understand how soon I’ll be forgotten by geological time.

My mind quiets, peace blanketing me until my little dog tugs me away.