She stood in a special place, allowing the joyful feelings of a decade ago to wash over her.
She embraced the living thing, pushing her cheek into the patterns of its rough surface. An outer skin that hid the living power deep within. Her arms held the trunk in a tight embrace. With eyes closed, she breathed in the tang of sap and the surrounding woodland. This was her favourite tree. This was a return; this was a confirmation of a special love pact made by a child, and this was goodbye.
It was only a tiny wood, so very close to her old home. Such a small patch of shrubs and trees, but a place full of magic all the same. It had been her wonderland before they moved away. Her father no longer having work when the old timber mill closed. The family having to resettle elsewhere. Even now, she recalls the bitter sadness of it at the age of eight. She remembers the response when she had begged her parents to stay. Their insistence that it was simply part of life that sometimes you had to move on, was at the time, and is seen now, as perfectly reasonable. Back then, to a young girl first learning about nature, it was a wrench away from some kind of newly found ownership.
She smiled softly into the old craggy bark, remembering the jibes from her playmates, who without any real malice, called her a tree hugger.
She had passed the big yellow machines and the men in their bright jackets on the way to her reunion. Skirting the main activities she had manage to get to the spot unseen. She knew there was no stopping it. She had seen it time after time on television, demonstrators chanting, protesters chained and padlocked to machinery, people up trees; all to no avail. Land clearing for a road, a new housing development, just about anything where trees were not needed, it was just something that had to happen. She wasn’t entirely comfortable with her acceptance of such things. To be here now, half waiting for some gruff voice yelling and ordering her to leave the area was proof enough that she cared. For her now, it was simply a matter of letting go.
As she made her way back to the bus that would take her home, the hum and rattle of machinery and the buzz of chainsaws slowly faded.
