A nutshell cracks… an acorn is split in two. Only through this, can they be more. They will remain, if left unchanged, a lifeless nub – a bit like rock, or dirt – a nothing, that brings no light to anyone.
There was a tree outside my window when I was a child. Its branches blocked the light from my window, so that the sunlight would shine green against my window panes. The tree was tall, and green, and grew alongside me each year. It seemed eternal, like its life would never end. It gave me peace all through my childhood. It dripped with rain, and bowed with snow; it buzzed with life, and crackled with promise. In the summer, it would shade me from the heat; in the autumn, it would bathe me in an orange/golden glow; in winter, it would shield me from the wind; in spring, it showered me with small, green things, as if to say ‘Come on! Come on, let’s go again!’ The tree protected me, and raised me.
When I found out (a few years ago, long after we’d moved) that it (the tree – my tree) had been cut down, something inside me thought ‘That’s not fair. That tree is how I know that good things can still grow.’ It felt like the end of something beautiful. To this day, I think it was the end of something beautiful.
When I lose things like that, a part of my heart cracks. It’s just a hairline fracture, first. Just a jagged eyelash of a thing. It makes a tiny spider web pattern, and a small sound like breaking porcelain. And I think ‘No. That would be the end. I cannot break… I cannot break…” And I try to pretend it isn’t there, and I move on.
The next time, it’s a different thing. Some small thing that would not hurt all that many people – but it is enough, I think, for me. I look, later on, and notice that my heart has gained another crack. An ugly, lightning-bolt-shaped mark, that I know I can’t hide very well… I put a little more effort into it. ‘Think of the tree!’ something in me thinks. ‘Remember something that can give you hope!’ But I remember that the tree is gone, and I feel something crack a little further.
It doesn’t take too long before I feel I live on borrowed time. My chest hurts, and I wrap my arms around and round myself to try and hold the pieces all in place. If my heart breaks, then- unthinkable. I can’t allow my heart to do that. The pain would be unbearable. Besides, if I can wait a little longer, maybe there will be another tree. Another something. Another hope, or dream. Another thing that will be what that tree was to me then.
I realize as I’m hoping it that trees are all a little different. That same one will never be replaced. But something in me realizes there are other trees.
I go outside, and walk along the sidewalk to the park. I cross the street a couple times. I walk in front of cars like I don’t care. I think a car might hurt less than my heart. I’m scared, and numb, but only from a lot of wishing. I stroll into the park and walk towards the trees.
Green greets me. Soft, multi-shaded leaves keep brushing on my skin. ‘Well here you are’ I think. ‘It took you long enough to find me.’ I’m still breaking. I’m still broken. But somehow now it doesn’t hurt that badly. I see the light that filters down across my coat, and realize that trees leave dappled shadows. I feel the bark against my palm, and know trees all have bark. I come back to the sacred pace I know when I am not alone. When I am held in the embrace of trees that will take care of me – if only by the way they bring me life.
I feel again that breathing feeling – hum of life, crackle of hope and potential. I see a greener, better world, and before I know it… I am looking at an acorn.
It’s small, and ugly. Not the prettiest, or shiniest of all the acorns – not the best dressed, or the biggest of the lot. Still this one acorn makes me think… because the shell is cracked. It has a jagged, hairline fracture, that has turned into a lightning-bolt-shaped mark, almost like a spider-web the shatter pattern traces all around the acorn shell.
I take the acorn to a blank space in the park. Where maybe an old tree had been pulled down. I dig a hole there, with my fingers, safely buried in the dead roots of the elder oak that was. Carefully, with all the tenderness I’ve learned from holding all my jagged parts together, I lower the acorn into the hole. “Just one step further,” I hear myself saying. “You are almost there. Just one step more. If you can break a little further, you will be somebodies tree.”
I pour in with it all the hopes, and dreams, and tears I’ve shed, and hope they help him grow. I hope he lets go, and he falls apart. I hope he breaks, the way he’s meant to do, and safely under that old tree that gave its life – that fell and made room for another thing to grow – I hope he realizes how much more he has to give.
When people asked me, as a child, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up,’ I always said ‘a dressmaker,’ or ‘someone who writes books.’ But yesterday I asked myself what is worth breaking for? What do you want to be? And I looked straight into the glass and said “I’m holding out to be a tree.”
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