In an effort to get this space active again, I am grateful to Gayla Trail at You Grow Girl for her new community initiative, the Grow Write Guild. Here is an excerpt from my exercise, My First Plant:
The first plant I ever loved was a Syringa vulgaris. The common lilac. Plain, purple …and perfect. We had a mature tree right outside the front door. The branches grew over and through the banister on our front stoop. The year I fell in love with it, I was three, maybe four. I thought it was magical. A gift from the Gods.
My father was of another mind. Or maybe he wasn’t, and that’s why he cut it down.
I remember padding down the hall from my room, standing alone at the top of the stairs. Perhaps all that perfume awakened me from my nap. Perhaps all the yelling a few minutes before. I saw sunlight pouring in through the open front door.
Then, a moment later, I saw the tussle of branches at his feet. He wasn’t cutting a bouquet. He was cutting it down. My beautiful, magical tree. He was cutting it down, to the ground, while it was BLOOMING!
In that moment, I realized I didn’t know who my father was. I was afraid of him. For the first time, truly afraid of him. And, I felt shaken. Three years old or not. Who am I, how am I worthy, the child of this man who cuts down lilac trees in their full flowering glory?
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