In the Trees

 I have written this post because I feel that spiritual experience has to be talked about to be valued, and if people are not talking about their unexplainable times then it slips right out of their consciousness. And then they stop noticing when these things happen.

Hopefully this clears up my intentions.

It had been years since I'd last talked to the girl who would eventually become my wife. But, six years into my eight year long exile, I found that I couldn't stop thinking about her. I'd wake up and be wracked with guilt. I'd go to sleep and hear it, in my head, over and over: "You failed her". Despite my tendencies to drama it's hard to fake continuous guilt. For whatever reason I couldn't get over it. And it was wreaking havoc with my life. I had started dating a girl but had no peace. I couldn't forget. God, I wanted to forget so badly. Nothing stopped the pain.

One night I went to bed, almost totally overwhelmed by this feeling of futility, of failure, of total nihilistic existence.  I had failed in the only way that really mattered to me.  I laid down, asking myself why I even bothered to sleep. I lay there for hours, as was normal, knowing I wouldn't sleep. Couldn't.

I woke up. I still don't quite know how to describe this to people, but I wasn't dreaming. I've had lucid dreams, I know what those are like. This was different. I was awake. But I wasn't at college anymore. I was in a tree. A tree that I knew to be on her property. I recognized the smell, the feel, of the air. The light. It was evening, and I was sitting in a treehouse that I knew wasn't on the property. But yet, here I was! I was back on their land. And I was relieved. I could hear her and her siblings, talking and laughing below me. And a great longing came over me, to go down there. To return. To be in the one spot that I had regarded as home for most of my life. But I couldn't bring myself to go down and see her, to see the family she would later give me. I just sat in the treehouse I knew they couldn't see, listening to the laughter and becoming miserable to the point of suicide.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Hicks?" I looked up. Next to me sat a friend from college. He'd never been here. It has slowly dawned on me since that this wasn't really my friend, but someone who had assumed his shape. But he had my friend's rough but gentle demeanor.

"She's down there, and I can't go down. I hurt her. And I can't... I don't know. What's the point?" I found myself asking.

"Oh shut the fuck up and stop whining! Fucking hell, you piss me off! That was years ago and you think she's still hurt by some stupid little petty dog shit you did? What a whiner, man up!"

Yes, he talked like that. I told you, he was a good man. Probably a better one now. Probably still talks like that though, God bless him.

I protested. "But I-"

"Shut. The fuck. UP. You're not that special. And even if you were, you'll both be fine."

And I knew it to be true, either way. And my friend and I talked in the soft light of the evening, listening to the woman who would eventually marry me talk with the family she'd give me. Few things are more beautiful than her laughter; those other things all have to do with her.

She laughed a lot that evening.

And I could barely take it. 

So many of my best memories of my life involve hearing her laugh, but I still couldn't listen to that joy without pure grief. My friend stayed with me, chatting with me in a low voice so I could hear her and keep my composure. He kept me there all through the Gentle Light of the Evening. And we listened to her laugh together, in a treehouse that shouldn't have been there.

Darkness began to gather, and I knew it was time to go. I closed my eyes.

I opened my eyes in my dorm room and felt peace for the first time in years. That peace was real. A part of it is with me, even now. Regardless of what that incident was, what it means, I know it to be real. True.

Years later, when I did return, I did not bother looking for the treehouse. I knew I couldn't see it. But sometimes, when I'm in solitude in those woods, I'll feel as if I'm watched. And I smile.