“We all have forests on our minds. Forests unexplored, unending. Each one of us gets lost in the forest, every night, alone.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin
Existing in a duality of past and future, ghosts of old trees encircle me. Their limbs violently tug at my arms and convince me that who I was, or what I had, is where I’m supposed to be. Their wind-brushed leaves tremble and tell me that the past is where I should stay, that things are better and more familiar. Naively longing for comfort, I follow. I give in to their wiles. And as I ignorantly fall into their traps, their blistered and striated roots restrain me and drag me back to the dark forests of my subconscious. I lose my grip. I let go. I believe their untruths, those empty vows forever unfulfilled. And just as every apparition mysteriously appears, so does it disappear. They enticingly persuade me with gold-laden leaves covered with fractured memories, only to fade and abandon me in the raven-black, wasteland that is the past. After the fire, is when the Aspens grow strongest.
These phantom trees are only thoughts, reoccurring dreams, intangible. An idea of what I thought I remembered. So, I search. Too dark to see, too quiet to hear. Nothingness bred with emptiness, a shadow’s nightfall. Soon, the movie plays. Fleeting glimpses, distant lightning flashes on a horizon of days gone by. I give chase. Just one more look, one more story of rain from their quaking leaves. I frantically pursue these visions, but I’ve been here before. I know they’re already gone. Just another dream disguised as reality. With an intrusive jolt, the specters return and thrust me back to where they found me, but their blistered roots leave me with unanswered questions and wounds of confusion and indecision. Of course, the wounds will heal, but not without painful time and grown-over scars.
Why do I permit these ghosts to reside within the confines of my brain? They seem to exist only to impede and pester me. They lay a choking blanket of dead, anoxic soil over my progress and growth. No new seeds can sprout. Still, I let them stay. They tempt me but leave me empty and bare. Part of me wishes to dwell in their realm of darkness, but I know I’m not welcome. I must rise from the dirt once more.
There are new horizons, slightly out of reach just yet. But that’s what goals are made of. Do I stay while I slowly wither and decompose in wait? Or, do I transplant myself to grow and flourish?
Back in the present, my personal reality. I’m accorded an ephemeral glance at what life can be. A bounty of clarity, motivation and confidence. A gentle flow of a river, moving forward, with nowhere to be but where it is, and an ocean of possibility where it will cease to exist.
My roots will forever be entangled in the past. It’s the beginning of every great tree. Weak and vulnerable. Before I grow, I must find my direction. Soon, my limbs will harden. And as I stand tall, centered in the present, my roots spread steadfastly into a sun-drenched future.
“There is life and death in all forest, the life will bring you beauty and the dead will bring you new life!"
- Roland R Kemler
