When I was small, the tiny patch of woods behind our house was a safe haven.
I did not grow up in a city. I didn’t even grow up in a town large enough for a traffic light or chain restaurant. We had one four way stop, one family-owned restaurant, and a million acres of forest surrounding us on all sides. In my own personal version of “walking barefoot uphill in a snowstorm”, the next closest town was a three-hour drive over dirt roads, with only the stretching forest in between.
So when I say that the woods behind my house were a safe haven, I mean that they were mine.
I picture it in absolute clarity – the moss strewn earth, the towering pines, the small burrow beneath protruding roots where little tea leaf-esque plants grew. I would spend hours immersed in my wood, making potions and magic and talking to trees.
And then one day, I stopped.
I was ten.
My friend and I were playing in the forest behind her house. We swung from birch limbs, watched the treeline for foxes, and I chatted away, both to my friend and to the trees. To me it was natural, they were both part of the conversation and it would be rude to exclude one or the other. My friend interrupted my chatter. She told me to stop talking to things that weren’t people. That our classmates would think I was weird. That she thought I was weird. And for the first time in my life, I felt a flush of shame for who I was. Fear for what others would say behind closed doors.
That was the day I stopped talking to the forest. Stopped making potions, stopped making magic. Instead, I did what I was supposed to; paid attention to boys and clothes and everything but the nature that grounded and sustained me.
I hid my magic to fit in.
But I could never truly let go of my hold on the fantastic. Potions and talking trees found their way into my writing, along with elves and magic and dragons. I started telling friends I was sick so I could stay home and write or read rather than going to parties. I yearned for that connection – it was reflected in the books that lined my shelves, the drawings doodled on every scrap of paper, the cartoons that I watched even as I edged into adulthood.
And then, suddenly, the things I had been hiding became coveted. It became cool to watch anime and dress up in costumes and gather with like minded people. It became cool to write fan fiction and stories about fantastical beings. Superheroes grew into fashion. I spent years allowing others to dictate which parts of myself were ok to reclaim, and when.
And then one day, I took back my power.
One year ago, I gave myself permission to embrace all the things that make me feel connected and whole. To reconnect with all that I’ve been yearning for since my ten-year-old self locked away this primal love for my own nature.
It’s still not widely accepted to talk to trees. But the people in my life love and support me for all that I am, and the many things that I am not. I am no longer ashamed of the things that set my heart on fire. I will continue to make my magic. And I will stay forever hopeful that the rest of humanity will do the same.
