The Mangroves

I remember being a young boy and playing for hours in the hedgerow of my yard. The tunnels they would create naturally that only a child could navigate; the worlds of wonder they inspired as I would lay upon my back and gaze at a lazy summer sky filtering through the newly budded branches in early spring. As i grew I found that even in the midst of playing army and war with friends, I'd have to be in woods where it felt "real". I would literally be in among the trees from as soon as I was allowed to exit the house until my mother would call at dusk. I wore army camouflage during these battles with peers and would insist on being fully clad in green. I needed the "look" and was convinced that uniformity was the reasons of my first connection to the wilds and forests; ultimately the land.

It was much later in my adulthood, following a near full enlistment in the Marine Corps that I discovered that the cause for my attraction to the military and ultimately to wearing green in the woods was just simply that: to be in the woods as connected and resembling to what I loved so much- The trees.

I had an opportunity while in Guatemala last week to visit a space fairly sacred to our boat driver. We were traveling through a waterway that extended through the entire west coast of Guatemala and extended even into parts of Mexico. It was an expansive preserve of mangrove trees that created an almost false land on every shore side. As our driver propelled us by use of long pole, he beached the boat on a small section of soil and bade us depart for his favorite spot. He had come here since childhood and explained that it was a place where adults could learn to feel as a child again.

All around there were the hardened tentacles of the mangroves reaching downward from sturdy branches. off of each tendril were often five finger like, soft and pliable shoots that resembled hands with fingers coming from the tree tops and reaching for the ground. We were told that we could climb the trees and that they were amazingly hard and could support our weight easily. Immediately I went up into the higher branches and literally played like I was 8 again! I was giggling openly and could feel the tree's delight to have us among them. They felt like children to me as well.

It was only out of respect for the driver's time and a family member needing to go to school that I left the space as easily as I did. I allowed the trees to brush their fingers along my head and shoulders as I walked, and I made sure to touch my hand to theirs as well. There was amazing love in these trees that have seen so much pollution and refuse throughout the years. They seemed to know the driver and love him as he loved them.

As these trees are now being protected I felt honored to be among them and know that they had a caretaker so devoted to sharing his and their experiences with us and others. I marveled at the durability and use of the tree itself, especially after reading about MIT scientists using them to create living houses (a story for another time!), and especially to know of their energy, vibrancy and innocence they exude and inspire in me. As I became part of their story, and they mine, I can only hope to hold on to that feeling and seek to experience and cultivate it, within other spheres of my life, with others both close to me, and as we were to the driver, -seeming strangers on a watery path.

Cheers.