Reminder of a childhood tree for @parul2411’s #ThursdayTreeLove

1. When I was a little girl (like, still in single digits), I truly believed in magic. I fed this belief with a steady diet of fairy tales and a slightly overactive imagination, to the point that I was convinced for a short time that a tree in our backyard had magical properties. While that tree is sadly long gone (cleared out after my parents moved, to make room for a new house), there is a tree in my current backyard that brought back strong memories of my childhood tree the first time I saw it. This is how that tree (just a little to the left of the center of the frame) looks looked on October 11th, 2021.
 
 
2. While it doesn't seem all that tall, compared to the trees around it...
 
 
3. ... it has a very large presence.
 
 
4. It's been too many years since I saw my childhood tree from this perspective, but I remember the same vibe of looking almost human like, with outstretched arms/branches welcoming you as a friend.
 
 
5. I remember many times being upset about something, and retreating into what I considered "the woods" in our backyard (which now as an adult, I realize was more like a scattering of trees, given how little space there was at the edge of the less-than-a-quarter acre lot that was our backyard).
 
 
6. I would sit under the tree and whisper all my woes to it.
 
 
7. I believed someone or something was listening to my words and offering sympathy to my wounded heart. I remember feeling I had friends all around me that I just couldn't see.
 
 
8. Did I mention my overactive imagination? LOL! In my defense, the tree did nothing to try to convince me otherwise - in fact, just the opposite.
 
 
9. I very distinctly remember a day that I was sitting under the tree, bemoaning yet another injustice to my tender ego, when I noticed a glint of cobalt blue on the ground near me.
 
 
10. I quickly dug it out and discovered a small blue jar with a rusty metal lid. If I recall correctly, the lid identified it as some sort of ant... not poison (because I'd like to think I'd have had the sense not to open the jar), but some sort of deterrent? Which didn't make sense to me at the time, as the jar seemed to just be filled with more of the same dirt it was buried in. Regardless, I felt the tree had given to me a very special magical gift.
 
 
11. Which brings me back again to this tree in my current backyard. Looking at how strongly it has grown from a ground filled with granite boulders, it seems to be proof that magic is real.
 
 
12. And who's to say there aren't really some magical folk living in the woods? Maybe, as W.B. Yeats said, it is just a case of,
“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
 
 
13. Some fifty odd years later, I still believe in magic (and still own that blue jar). It might not be in the form of my childhood fantasy, but I know it's real. And I'm thankful for the moments when I can retreat into the woods behind our house and be reminded again.
 
 
14. And just before I hit publish on this, I decided to clean up the aforementioned jar (after I dug through the dust and clutter on my desk to find it) and take a picture of it. I included a penny to give an idea of the size - and even more special, the penny I also dragged out of the disaster area that passes as my work space, turned out to be from the year I graduated high school, and has a shamrock stamped on it (I joked with my husband that at some point, we probably paid a dollar to buy a lucky penny...lol). But now that newly cleaned & shiny penny is living inside this jar, and there's a new (albeit small) clean space in my life.
 
 

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