We pick up the remnants of our childhood from the things and people that cross our path. Sometimes even the least expected experiences shake us from within, forcing us to lose our grasp on what we have longed established our grip upon.  

She said she was in the bookstore not too long ago and a picture, perhaps familiar to fairytale lovers, caught her eye. It was a typical picture of a forest with some of the tallest trees she had ever seen. She had to google what these trees were called and the search for this tree led to an unravelling of something deeper.  

She was a little girl who was lost in the woods. She prances around from tree to tree. Lovely, deep, dark and tall trees didn’t scare her. She was one of a kind who found comfort around the redwood. She hugged it tightly like how she would to her bolster.

The girl grows up into a beautiful woman. Yet, battered by life, she finds herself always seeking out to the familiar redness. She runs as fast as her legs could carry until the numbness of her feet forces her to fall flat on her knees.

She gets up and touches the rough surfaces, feels its coarse repeated patterns smoothly evened out on its bark.  It feels like it has been overexposed to tumultuous conditions, yet it stands tall against time.

The rustling of the leaves and whistling of the winds seemed to have calmed the voices in her head. A sound erupts through the corner of her lips. Alas, her breath returns to its usual pace. It feels comforting.

She stretches out her hands once more and places it gently onto me. Her smile makes me feel, alive. Healing me from within. This could have just been a case of a lunatic and a lifeless bark.

With each visit, her voice grew louder and louder. Soon, it overpowered the cacophony of the jungle. She knew that she had survived. Being redwood made her roots grow deep.

I couldn’t be more proud of her. She had finally become one of us.