Story Threads

Story Threads; Tree, the Entrance

Eloise Taesali

August 8, 2012

Wonder what the tender girl thinks about the place that she is. Standing in front of the tree’s sheltering arms branching out above her, where nature lives so vividly.  Where windy spirals of leaves turn flashing autumn colors, catching the special light found shining only in Golden Gate Park.  The cool crisp moist air so clean and fresh is copiously fragrant with new leaf mold, sea mist and sunshine.  Her soft curls gently kiss her rosy cheeks and a definite chill fills her nostrils.  Her family is somewhere near as she adventures deeper into this beauty. Limitless shades of blue and green contrast harmoniously with the warm colors of a fall ready to close just a breath away. Soon the leaves will be unseen, like her real spirit, a pale memory surrendered to the rain and washed into the soil nourishing the deep hungry roots of this tree.

By that time her first holy communion will be commencing and she will move into the next expectation further and further away from her already veiled unique self.  Does she wonder if she will be nurtured like the tree? Will the nature of her life feed her, family members carrying the necessary encouragement to feed her roots deeply?  And will the nicely manicured rolling meadow upon which this tree lives reflect the undulating rhythms that become her life?  Or shall it be wild and turbulent like the Pacific Ocean so near to her now she can hear the faint thundering of waves crashing on the beach whenever the wind dies down.

This is an in-between place.  The in-between place you wish could be in forever.  If only we could hold this moment!  To be, always right here, right now.  To hold forever a sharp memory of gently rolling and tumbling down this very slope from this very tree to the bottom of this tiny hill in Golden Gate Park, the way we did all summer and before in the other fun times in that beginning of the in-between place.

Not leave here, to not go home, to not go back to school and to not go to church!

No communion ahead of her, just nature like it is right here, right now.

To stay here, by the tree and let nature feed her deep roots. Roots that have distant rhythms over the Pacific Ocean just down the path.  How will she navigate her life when the veil of communion blocks the starlight in the night sky?  The eight year old bride will forever lose herself to a new order.  And like the creek at the bottom of the hill she plays an active role in the ritual, unable to resist, sacrificing to what is unknown.

The in-between place will be forever lost in the new expectation.  It will be lost and forgotten, though it will try and try again to be recognized at every turn.

How many other seasons will there be? What’s beyond spring summer fall and winter?  Present. Past.  Future. How many cycles? Spirals, turns.