The Lake Knows My Name

I whisper to the trees and they talk back to me.

I whisper to the trees and they talk back to me.

There’s something ancient in the way they speak, never with words. I hear them telepathically as they share with me. Mostly, it’s encouraging. They remind me why I’m here. When I say “here”, I mean here on earth. They remind me that I am actually much more than the skin and bones I walk around with, that I carry like a weight. I am stardust, as are you. It’s poetic and raw, but it’s also a simple truth. Humans are souls having an earthly experience; at least, that’s the way I’ve come to understand life. It comforts me that the wise oaks agree. They are never hurried, never rushing, always steady. They have so much to teach us, and yet, they listen to our petty woes with patience.

The loudest and most patient trees I have known live on a mountainside in North Carolina. They feel like my kin. Maybe some people are more connected to certain living things. Just as some of us take an immediate liking to other people, to our “soul” animals, our soulmates…why can’t we have soul plants? Why can’t the living trees also connect with specific humans, ones that share ideologies and beliefs or personalities, just as other living things can?

Is this crazy? Or is it true? Tell me you’ve never met someone who has an insanely green thumb. A person who can make any flower bush bloom with such ferocity and strength, it’s as if the flower is an outstretched piece of that person herself. Or a gardener who is so attached and so loyally committed to his vegetables that it is very much as if they are in a relationship. The gardener tends to his orchard with tenderness, compassion, wise understanding. This is love.

I have this intimate depth with the trees surrounding Fairfield Lake. They perch around the serene water that is carved into a mountain side. It is a quiet place that echoes laughter across its stillness. The lake’s water is dark and cold, reflecting the deep hues of emerald from the trees that protect its peace. A tiny beach rests there, welcoming families for picnics or lone travelers enjoying a novel.

I visit my trees once a year. We reconnect with reverence over all that’s happened since I last saw them. They listen to me. I sit on an old sandy chair, the sun shines down on my skin, older than the last time I was here, perhaps an extra wrinkle or two, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m back in the company of my friends, long-lost relatives who know my story. I tell them my tales through my mind’s eye, and they nod with acceptance, empathy, and understanding. The wind rustles in a specific way, and I think they may be chuckling; they never laugh at me, but they do make me see how silly some problems really are.

The little beach sits in such a way that the trees make a huge semi-circle around it when you are lying there, enveloping you in the present moment. They branch out to the left and right and slowly curve all the way around until they meet back directly in your line of sight on a cliffside. The mountain’s monumental height is intimidating, and a huge portion stands naked with no shrubbery at all, only smooth rock. But mostly, the eloquent trees stand tall and calmly, with no agenda except to be present with its visitors enjoying the lake and sand and sun.

We are special and chosen companions, those of us allowed to decipher their truth. There is a maternal and ethereal feeling that makes you see your mistakes in the light of day and also suddenly discover solutions to problems you’ve wrestled with for the last year. I come to them with humility, hoping for grace, hoping for guidance. Never once have they disappointed me. I arrive to the lake and offer my heart’s most honest aches and desires, and I am met with what feels like a warm hug embracing me with pure affection.

Last summer, in the depths of postpartum pain, I was unable to visit the trees. The only year I have missed since I was 11 years old. I longed for their comfort and wisdom. I wished to be there as I cried tears over the stretching—the physical, mental, and spiritual stretching that postpartum brings. I often attempted to pull their peace into my heart while I was getting to know my brand new baby in the Louisiana heat of July. And I knew that when he finally got to experience my favorite place, it would feel like magic. So I held tightly to this notion for an entire year, waiting to breathe my sigh of relief, the biggest one yet. One that symbolized an entire year of motherhood survived, an entire year of nurturing a new heart, an entire year grasping on to joy through the broken and confusing pieces of my new family.

We finally made it last week. I watched my waddling boy explore sand and rocks and deep, purposeful water for the very first time. I stood in the sun staring up at my old friends, and they seemed to bend towards me with a knowing smile saying, “We knew you could do it. Welcome, Sal.”

I was teary-eyed remembering all the versions of me who have sat on that same sand wondering who my children would one day be. Hoping earnestly to become a mother at some distant point in the future. Worrying about my path to get there. All along, the trees knew. They knew my path long before I did, which is why they were so willing to comfort me in my tears as I shared my secrets with them. Because they knew my beautiful boy was coming, in his unusual yet divine way.

I will teach my son to whisper to the trees, to listen for their wisdom speaking into his heart. I will trust that he hears them as much as I do. That they pass on omniscient wisdom directly from the heavens, and we must pay attention to their stories. They will never steer us wrong.

As I carried my damp toddler up the hill after our day in the sun, he turned and waved his little hand towards the lake to say goodbye. The wind shifted ever so slightly in that moment, and I swear, the trees waved back at him.

Until next year…