Following the Tree Spirit
I enter the clearing. The tree spirit is sitting on a stump, carving. “Let’s go,” he said, rising. “And bring that teenager.”
I hadn’t noticed a teenager before. “And the little girl,” he tells me and heads off quickly down the path.
We follow, me, the teenager, and the little girl, out of the woods to a paved road. He goes to the edge of the road and sticks out his thumb.
“Really?” I ask.
“It’s the only way to get there,” he says, shrugging.
I roll my eyes this time, and go sit under a tree to the side of the road with the little girl and the teenager. We let the tree spirit do the hitchhiking. I know it isn’t that we are hitching for just any ride. We are waiting for the right ride. One with a driver or passenger who will recognize the tree spirit. But they have to be paying attention, not changing the radio station or reading a book or watching a movie.
So we wait. Cars zoom by. There aren’t many trees besides the one we are sitting under. It’s hot here and not beautiful. I wonder what happens if no one comes, but I don’t say anything. The tree spirit finally comes over to where we sit.
“They can’t see me,” he says. “I need the child.”
“Really?” I ask, again. But I trust him. She looks to me for reassurance. I nod. She reaches for his hand and they walk back to the road.
Immediately a van stops. Flowers hang from the rear-view mirror. The driver has long auburn hair. She is laughing. Music is playing. It’s the 1980s. She’s driving to Vermont, she tells us, leaving California. “Do we want to come along?” She asks.
The tree spirit looks over, See? His eyes say.
We come over and slide open the door.
The tree spirit climbs in front. We climb into the back, the teenager, the little girl, and me. She’s heading east, though she’s a California girl at heart, she tells us as she pulls back onto the road. The van smells like flowers and herbs and pot. The shocks are bad. The upholstery is torn. But she’s so filled with joy. She and the tree spirit talk about trees. She knows how to talk to him in a way I don’t. I envy her ease, her joy, her clarity, picking up everything to leave sunny, beautiful California for cold, dark Vermont.
“Why are you going?” I ask, when there is a pause.
“For love and because I am young!”
“But it isn’t only that,” she adds, looking at me in the rear view mirror, knowing I’ll understand. “There is a flame that needs tending in the hills of Vermont, a seed that grows from the sound of a drumbeat, from the speaking of prayers out loud. I know it’s me that has to do it. That’s why I am going.”
She’s not the greatest driver. A little too fast, a little too reckless. Trees grow more and more densely on either side of the road.
“What will you do when you get there?” I ask.
“I’ll work,” she says.
“I’ll pray. I’ll do what I always do. I’ll make medicine.”