My life started on a warm, sunny day. I remember flying in the wind—how I loved it. How light I was. How free. The taste of the air—like cherry blossom petals and dewy grass.
My brothers and sisters flew down around me. I watched as some were carried off until I couldn’t see them anymore. Don’t go! I wanted to shout. But they were already too far, and an ache began in me.
Eventually, the wind caressed me down to a soft spot of dirt. I greeted Earth hesitantly at first, but she embraced me entirely, swallowing me up in her humus and welcoming me home.
It didn’t take long to sprout into the world. I was overjoyed. Earth had been warm and comforting, but I was ready to taste the air again, to meet the sun with arms outstretched. And oh, how the sun tasted—unlike anything I’d ever experienced! I couldn’t get enough of it. The more I drank, the faster I grew. And the more I grew, the more I could see.
I was finally able to see my family, who stood all around me. They were so tall and grand. I even saw some of my brothers and sisters who had started from the same cone. I sent them messages urging them on, but we all understood that only one of us—or maybe none—would make it all the way. It was a sad thought. But it was the way it was, the way it had to be.
Every day brought something different: the sun, clouds, rain, or snow. Beings of all kinds—four-legged ones with sticks growing from their heads, small ones with long tails that scurried around my trunk, tiny striped ones that flew, and two-legged ones that wandered past. These beings all had different ways of existing. And the more I grew, the more I could notice and see. Standing in one place for an entire life gave me this. There was no other place to be but here.
But there was something special about the two-legged ones. They noticed me. They would stop in their tracks and look up. Sometimes they even touched my bark, their palms remaining there for moments that could have been years—until our hums became one, tendrils of golden light.
Time passed. Life remained. It was impossible to feel lonely. Earth held me firmly, my kin urged me on with gentle encouragement, the sun fed me, and the moon caressed me. I was whole. I was a part of it all, and it all was a part of me. I grew toward the sun and throughout the ground, reaching more and more.
One day, the two-legged ones came, but they brought things with them that I could not feel—things I did not understand because I could not sense them the way I sensed all living beings. And these things were so loud. They made my kin around me fall—too quickly. I didn’t understand. Little pieces, too many pieces, snapped within me when they fell. Inside me, an ache so profound began to grow.
The falling eventually stopped, and in its place, the two-legged creatures came with more noises and more things. And these sounds continued; I can’t remember if they ever stopped. But I kept growing and learning names.
Around me now were objects and structures I could not make sense of. The two-legged creatures were always around me; there were so many of them. Except they didn’t touch me anymore in the way they used to. They didn’t stop and look up at me. And because of this, I could not give them any of my hum. I began to feel less and less of them, and in turn, they began to feel less and less of me. I started to feel invisible—lonely—a feeling not usual for our kind.
One day, a two-legged creature with long brown hair that reminded me of the Earth stopped beside me, looked up into my branches, and placed her hand on me. She was sending her hum. I sent one back. She smiled, closed her eyes, and leaned into me, wrapping her arms around me. Eventually she walked away, and the ache inside me grew. Don’t go. Please don’t go.
And she didn’t. She stayed. Every day she would come—sometimes alone, but often with a tall, dark-haired companion. Not Earth-coloured—darker, like the night sky.
I had become old. How, I’m not sure. It seemed only a moment since I had come here tumbling from the sky. The weather cycled on, the sun shone down, and the creatures I had come to care for remained beside me. Then one day, the brown-haired creature approached me, pressed her stomach against me, and said something I couldn’t understand. But I could feel what she was showing me. Life was there in her centre—a new life. I could already feel the little one’s strong and gentle essence.
It happened in the middle of winter. She came to me with the new little one clutching her tightly. The beautiful brown-haired creature, now a mother, tried to place the little one’s hand on me. Her tiny clenched fist touched me for a moment and then curled back into the mother. I caught a glimpse of her eyes—gentle blue, like the eggshells the birds lay in my branches. The mother looked up at me and touched her lips to my bark.
The second little one came soon after. It was a day in early spring when life was just starting to wake; energy and light flowed everywhere. When the mother came to me, this one didn’t seem to want to stop touching me; it looked like she wanted to climb me all the way to the top. Her eyes were wide—the same awakening energy that was flowing through all life on this spring day flowed through her.
And then finally, the third and final one—the boy. It was the beginning of fall, the end of summer, the cusp of freedom and duty. He was larger than his sisters had been, and the mother looked at me with tiredness that swelled deep in her eyes. This little one looked at me thoughtfully. He didn’t touch me but leaned forward and placed his forehead on my trunk. I could feel his little eyelashes blinking.
Watching this family of creatures became one of my greatest joys. The mother would sit beside me for hours at a time, with her children and without. The father made swings for the children that hung from my branches and placed a rocking chair beneath me for the mother. It was a family full of so much love. I could feel that my kin had also grown very attached. The family spent entire days outside with us—touching us, talking to us, sitting beside us. We loved them in return, keeping them safe in the ways we knew how.
They were all so different, the children. The first and last born had wavy, earth-coloured hair like their mother, while the middle child had ringlets of golden hair that reminded me of the deep set of the sun. The firstborn spent hours making daisy-flower necklaces for everyone, talking to the flowers as she plucked and wove them, often placing a bundle of the leftover blooms at my trunk. The youngest was not often without his mother—his hands tangled in her hair or dancing in circles around her legs or my trunk, smiling, always smiling, a chorus of giggles escaping into the air. The middle child started to climb me as soon as she could. Sometimes the other two followed her up, but often she climbed too fast, too high, and remained alone in my branches for hours.
As the three children grew, something began to feel off within me. It soon became apparent that I was dying. My kin could feel this too. They sent me their hums, special ones reserved for healing, but I knew it would do nothing. I was far past healing.
One day, the oldest child stood beside me. She was no longer a child. There was a suitcase beside her and tears in her eyes. She put her fist against my bark, but only briefly, like she had done in her first days on Earth. The other four were now beside her, holding her. It made me think of watching my family fly off into the wind in my early days. I felt that familiar ache.
The golden-haired child climbed me on the day she left—something she hadn’t done for some time. But today she climbed and climbed, higher and higher. She sat on a branch and wrapped her arms around me. I could feel tears touch my bark and silent shaking. She climbed down and left.
The youngest one left shortly after too. I could tell he was ready. He was a quiet and caring soul. He said goodbye to me, putting his forehead against my trunk and taking a deep breath. In the hum that passed between us, I received a clear message: Take care of her.
Once all the children had left, the mother came to me. A new ache lay deep in her chest. She wept and wept, letting her tears fall freely. But as the days passed, the crying stopped. Only the ache remained.
I didn’t want to leave; I loved this life. But my time was ending. Earth told me a storm was coming, and I knew I would not be strong enough to endure it. The mother was older now; we both were. She could sense my time was coming. My branches must have looked weak, my leaves gray. She stayed with me constantly in my final days—whispered things, sang songs. The father would often be there as well, looking at me longer than usual.
It was not a matter of saying goodbye. I was old enough to know that with life came death. My hum of life would enter those around me, and it would sit within them until it was their time to carry their hums to the others. That is the ache inside us—that is the hum. They are one and the same. It is how we exist forever. It is why we exist. We are all complete beings, made up of all the love, hurt, and life that has ever been. How tragic. How beautiful.
A part of me wishes I could speak in a language the woman could understand. Or perhaps the language we held between us had been enough—more than enough. The gifts she gave me held me here as strongly as Earth protected me or the sun fed me: the father with his firm gentleness; the oldest daughter with her gift of vulnerability and care; the middle child with her sunlit energy and ambition; the youngest boy with his ability to love so deeply and truthfully. The birds that rested on my branches, the deer that grazed at my trunk, the bees above me, and the fungi underneath me—all the beings here with me, even if only for a moment—now swirl and swoop in the breeze that embraces me fully. I inhale and exhale all the tiny-to-big brushes and strokes of life I call love. Through this existence of mine, I have been a creature of the Earth. We are all creatures of the Earth. I wish more of them could see it.
She came to me the night the wind was picking up and I was slowing down. Her hair was still chocolate brown, but her bones had weakened. She placed her hands on me, then her forehead. I could feel her tears. I knew she was thanking me—saying goodbye. If only I could tell her that I wasn’t going anywhere.
The wind is getting louder, but why does everything feel so quiet? It’s so quiet except… except for a sliver of a hum. I can feel it vibrating throughout my being. The woman stands there, her hair flying wildly in the wind, her forehead still pressed to my trunk, her arms holding me.
It is this moment. It has always been this moment.
10/09/2024