Dearest Unnamed Tree

Dearest Unnamed Tree,

I never knew that I would fall so deeply for you. When we first met, it was by mere chance, in the midst of the ancient playground of the Zapotecs, seeped of Gods and gameball sacrifices. I hope you don’t take this personally, but you had the funniest hairstyle I had ever seen for a tree -- parts sticking up and out, a do’ that extended way far out, and curly-cue branches tinged with burnt red-hue spatterings. And, my, your trunk, short-stubbed yet twisted in knots within knots of each other -- you had clearly grown into your own, standing firm, alone, yet confident, even though you looked a wee bit more eccentric than all the others.

I have to admit that at the time when you and I first engaged, I was far more enraptured with my travel soul mate, Ben. He is, after all, human, and you – well, you are a quieter sort. I wonder if perhaps you placed a love spell on me when you heard me giggling and twirling in love—such a reprieve, I'm sure, in a land weighed down with millenias-old conflicts. Yes, that must have been how you picked me to be the one and only for you! Though given the strength of the sun, I could be over-exaggerating, blinded by your infatuating talent of mesmerizing young ladies with your unspeakable stare. Regardless, in my heart, I carried you back to Canada and held you in tight.

Sadly, my dear mate, Ben, and I parted. Who else could I share with in the delight of your memory? What was I to do? I thought I had to tuck everything away in dusty treasure chests—including you! Yes, I am so very very sorry but it’s true. Even you, I tried to deny. Though I know that the specialness of you is far too great to be hidden away in the recesses of my own mind.

Without any loves to love in my life, I walked by store windows on Bay Street, envious at mannequined bodies who had no worries about soul mates and where-to-go-next ponderings. Yet I somehow knew I couldn’t be anybody without some kind of heart beating beneath the surface. No matter where I went I couldn’t find a cure for this malady in the grey, one-tree-at-a-time-lined sidewalks of Toronto.

Scanning the mini-forests of the Big City, I had an ache to reconnect with beings of the leaf-ed variety. I strolled through the massive oak trees in High Park, hoping they would let me be their little acorn, but they said – nope, dear one, you gotta go back home ---you’re just not so very mighty like us. So I pursued another, closer to my size. I admit that I pretended I was enraptured by the maple trees with their flittering red-tinged autumn glory leaves– yes…anyone would agree that they really are quite lovely…but they're reserved for somebody else, not me. And the sturdy pine trees, with their forever-needles aggrandizing Canadiana postcards -- they couldn't even accept my sorrows!

What was I missing??? I couldn’t sort out this soul frenzy.

So I just sold everything! Everything! I had to get out of this dreadful, uncaring city. I risked not having a place to live. I risked my life and personal safety. No job, no direction. The only thing I was sure of was that I needed to return to Oaxaca City. Something or someone was there for me. . .

So I went. And I sat in a room for 2-months in Mexico, pondering what madness would lead me to this place, no idea of what the heck I was doing there in the first place. The more I sat in the heat waves of time, the more I felt the heartbreak by previous lovers. The mariachi players singing latin tales of love gone wrong just added to the wounds. Was my destiny to simply die in this land of dreams of poets and painters who never get noticed?

Not knowing what else to do, I plopped myself on the bus that chugged cautiously up the mountain to the Zapotec ruins. Out the window I stared over the cliff that seemed ruthless in eating up tourists like me who never asked the credentials of the bus driver.

When will this pain and misery end, was my ongoing mantra on the trip. Yet I felt guilty for even wallowing in this self-pity given the level of comfort I was afforded compared to my fellow human who is living in a slum with threats of illness and invasion always around the corner.

I got off the bus, not wanting to relate with anyone, stretching my body into the clouds. It all looked the exact same as 2 ½ years before. The museum was still there. the ticket agent accepting payment. The same tour guide uniforms. But no Ben this time. Just me. Was I on some-type of roller coaster ride that would never end, coming back to the beginning only to go in another ridiculous circle?

I paid my fare and started strolling like a visitor who no longer belongs to the route of tourist first-timers. I am a more seasoned pro here and no one could tell me to stay along the road of historical explanations. I left my bus compatriots behind and decided I would, as was the essence of this journey, go it alone.

By one of the tombs, I met a fellow who was at least a foot taller than me. He asked if he could take a picture of me beside a tree. I had suspicions that perhaps he was just looking for a photo to send home to tell others he had found a young foreign lady. But, he made a believable argument with his awed enthusiasm that he was collecting the seeds from this tree because it is the very same tree that produces the resin for the traditional rubber ball game. He wanted to show his friends on the coast the height of the tree in comparison to me. What a phenomenal love slave he had become to this tree and the game, as I would soon learn I was the same to you.

The man left grinning with contentment from ear-to-ear. Why is it that I could make others happy and not myself? Why, Dear God, was I here in this land where there is endless pollution, suffering, people living in class divisions? How is it that my feet were walking on the same land that others walked 2,000 or more years ago? What is the point of it all?!

Then I stumbled and tripped over that great landscape I visited merely 2 1/2 years before. And I SAW YOU AGAIN! My knees wobbled at the sight of you...I had shamefully forgotten about you since so much had happened from the last time we met. I forgot we had this quiet relationship unbeknownst by others. That we had made some kind of pact that you held in your tree-trunk heart--that I had discarded somehow? Was it really you calling me across two countries -- yearning for us to reacquaint?

IT WAS! You called out for me to come to see you. You knew the depths of my own heart failing in relationships gone by. You knew I needed to see something familiar to salve this yearning for a friend who made no judgments about me or others. I laid under your shade and never wanted to leave. I felt I could die there and everything would be okay. I had found you again. I swear I felt the tickling of your tiny green leaves reaching down to my shoulder, saying sweetly "oh, dear Heather, I missed you. I love you and hoped you'd return."

You needed me as much as I needed you! After all, how many other people have spent the time to appreciate all the unusual gifts you have to offer, preferring to spend their time on the massive man-made steps of temples across the way. Of course! Two hours was far too short for this love affair but I knew I needed to return back to the city, otherwise I'd be mixing with Spirits under the midnight moon.

I collected all of your heart seeds into my being, promising never to forget you because I was now your newly self-appointed guardian who cares about you and will send you thoughts of love from ethers of long distances. It's sad but true-- I just can't physically visit like this all the time, for I have my roots as you have yours. But I love you and always will and you have not gone unnoticed in this world of people too busy to check out eccentric trees with funny hairstyles.

Love always,
Heather