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  • Writer's pictureMarika Engelhardt

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What is it about the place you grew up that takes over your body and forces roots to shoot down from your heart into the ground? No matter what I do, every effort to stay above the clouds fails, and the atmosphere takes me by the shoulders and sets me down. Stay for a while, won’t you?

Today I walked into the forest by my parent’s house, a lush kingdom that has lived next door to me all my life. A park is one thing, it makes you feel in charge. A forest reminds you that you never were and never are. In charge, that is. It’s full of wet and moss and hidden creatures. You can walk for hours but you’ll never fully know what’s going on under fallen trees. Roots are secretive that way. They only tell you what they want to tell you.

So I go searching for what I can touch and feel. City streets, old friends, past haunts. What exactly is waiting there? Going back to your hometown feels like you’re always taking a part of your past and setting it on fire. The embers of your youth kicked up, agitated, but eternally buried just beneath the surface of the ash. Are you kicking up trouble? Maybe. Tick tock, tick tock it whispers in your ear. But of course time has gone on without you. New avenues, new loves, new children. Few things wait for you. Trees are branching everywhere and you are trying to keep up but life moves too fast. All you can do is go searching for the roots. There are secrets there. If you’re lucky, someone will tell you the truth about how they are. And it’s the kindest thing one human being can do for another. Peel back the bark, please, and tell me what and why and how and is it what you thought? That’s bearing witness. It’s a cup that can never overfill.

A new pine tree sits in my yard, barely one foot tall. My dad planted it. A valiant attempt to breathe new life into a family tree whose branches are splintering and drying up. The older pines cast a shadow over the house, quietly watching with cruel indifference. That’s nature for you. We come and go, come and go. Still, that new pine brings him peace. And peace is fought for, even if you didn’t fight the fight yourself. Just be thankful.

The last thing I do before I leave is sit in the parking lot of my childhood grocery store. It’s just a paved parking lot and a bright red sign, but it means the world to me. It’s a million trips to buy this or that, it’s a place of comfort. It’s what I know. A place of sustenance? Just being sentimental I suppose, though I never did have snacks in the house. So why am I here? To buy what I want? I could go in and buy anything, I think I've earned that. But instead I'm just going to sit here in the car. I’m rooted but my branches grew into arms and legs that can decide. What I want. Or need. Or both. I'll leave without buying anything.

Did I plant a tree or start a fire? Is there a difference? I don’t know.

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