UP UP AND AWAYYY!

 Okay, Halloween has come and gone and I just can't get a memory out of my head about a kid I went to school with.  His father was one of the only people I have ever known who made his fortune as a true inventor.  It always seemed to me, however, that the inventions were totally out of place.  He was the kind of person that, in theory, would be good to have with you in an emergency situation.  Given  little more  to work with than a tampon string and an Eggo waffle, he might  invent something that could  really  save your life.  In reality, however, the invention would have as little relevance to the surroundings you were in  as a ham and cheese  sandwich does to a bull fight.  With this in mind, let's move on two ingredient number two for this story.
     When I was growing up, just North of Los Angeles, the Santa Ana winds would blow twice a year.  Once in the Spring, and again in the Fall.  They are VERY strong and have been known to lift Spanish tile roofs, one tile at a time, and throw them over the house until there is nothing but bare wood on the windward side of the house.  Kids love it because it blows the Hell out of everything and has gusts so g that it isn't unusual to be talking with one of your friends  one moment and suddenly watching them land face first in the dirt the next.  So what does this have to do with an inventor and Halloween?  Well, happily, at least as far as this story is concerned, Halloween is in the Fall.  I know. You're asking, "How the Hell do these two things relate?", right?  Well in order for these two things to even begin to get funny, we need a final component.  We need the desire of a small boy to be a pilot for Halloween.
   
     The costume this man made  was absolute GENIUS.   It was a World War II  fighter pilot in a Dauntless Dive Bomber. The kid was  dressed with a fur hat and goggles and the rest of his body was designed  to resemble the fuselage complete with a vertical fin attached to his butt. His father had made  hollow "wings" out of cardboard taped around the edges of a pair of crutches that he could hold tight to his armpits.  The nose of the aircraft was a tapered box on his chest with a propeller on the front. He even had small cardboard fairings on his legs and  two round pieces attached to his shins to resemble landing wheels.  The entire thing was painted a beautiful navy blue; nose art and identification numbers as well.  I could see him standing in his kitchen from our living room window.  When he held still, he looked like a display from the Smithsonian Aviation Museum.  But that's not what Halloween costumes are for, are they?  No. They're for walking around in to get candy.  And here is where we get to put all the ingredients together into a  sick , twisted , 'Easy Bake Oven' of Fate, and then coax it, with the help of a small irony powered light bulb,  into a recipe for disaster.
     Jeremy stepped off the front porch and for a brief instant he was RESPLENDENT!!  The sun shined on the smooth upper surfaces of the wings and his white scarf  lifted off the edge if his collar.  He WAS a fighter pilot!.....And then the stiff  Santa Ana winds took notice of Jeremy.

     A gust of wind assaulted the brave fighter pilot as he attempted to taxi onto the front yard.  For a brief moment, with his  nose pointed defiantly at the raging tempest, it looked as though Jeremy was going to succeed and ride out into the wild blue yonder.  But it wasn't to be.  The wind caught the under side of the wings and propelled him backward across the yard  with a speed usually reserved for catapults.  His little feet, encumbered by cardboard landing gear, pinwheeled as fast as they could, but were unable to make 
purchase.  The wings folded up over his head and the wind swatted him into the chain link fence along  the side yard like a mosquito on a windshield.   Being a child myself, I did the only thing I could.  I howled with laughter.  Were it not for the fact that his parents were standing right on the porch, I am sure that the wind would have  squeezed him piece meal through the fence like so much  Parmesan cheese.

     Fear not. Jeremy is  now an inventor himself and lives in Iowa.  I hear he takes the train anywhere he goes too.

Excerpt from THE PARABLE OF PRIDE

.....the boy was tenacious ,capable,and better than most at accomplishing anything that he put his mind to. He had no need to hold what he made for himself, though, and so he was not greedy. He shared all he had willingly, but  always loved the ability to be seen for what it was he could do. "Thank you" was all he needed to hear and "thank you" was something that was never in short supply from those who received from him.

He was in love with a beautiful peasant girl, and while there were plenty of girls who would jump at the chance to be with him, he wished only to spend his time nearer to her. What she needed of him did not come from what he could give her, but from what she received by being near him. And while she never had a need of others, either,she did have the need him to be near him more than anyone else. Not for what he could do for her, but for what he would do if she so much as asked. Because of this, however, she never did. She wasn't incapable of doing anything for herself, either, but enjoyed what he could accomplish. But her love for him was all she ever needed.The boy knew this, and spent as much time with her as he could but always wanted to give her the very best of him.

     His mother and father had left two years before to find work and left him in the care of a kindly uncle.  The mother and father never returned, and then the uncle died as well, leaving the boy alone. He was strong and capable, though, and rather than turn him out as an orphan, he  worked long enough to be able to care for the small modest farm house  by himself until he was of age to claim it for himself. The village admired the boy for his tenacity and saw no reason to not offer what was rightfully his.

     It came to pass that a woman came into the village one Fall claiming she needed lodging to stay in over the winter. Her wretched husband had turned her out to fend for herself and came to the only place she knew she had family.  She introduced herself as the farm boys aunt. The boy had never seen the woman before, but she could describe his kindly uncle well enough to convince the village that she should live with the farm boy over the Winter.

She was kindly and charming in her own way that seemed to completely allay any suspicions of the village that they may have had about her, but the boy was not so sure. He didn't like the way she looked at him and smiled; Like she knew something he did not and that the smile seemed to operate to serve two completely different functions depending on who she looked at.  She was, nevertheless, his Aunt, and he treated her respectfully at all times. She explained that she was fully capable of being on her own but longed for company, and that family was, indeed, the best of company to be had if there was any at all.

The village on the whole, pitied a woman alone, and  they knew the farm boy would do nothing less than exactly what they assumed he would. He brought her in to the farm house and she worked alongside the others. Not better to make her an asset, but no less to make her a liability either. Just enough to get by. Every day she did her share just like everyone else, but only as much as was needed to provide for herself. In a very short time, the old woman and the boy were seen as a single unit providing for the village, but to the boy,she seemed to actively remain as close as she could to him and what he provided while never feeling the need to explain to the rest of the village that he had accomplished where she had not.

     She was,however, a very clever and cunning woman, and never gave the boy the recognition he needed or deserved for what he did. If he went hunting, he would bring back three rabbits where others had only caught one. She would take the rabbits he offered her and say quite plainly, "It's too bad you weren't good enough to catch four".  When the men and boys stacked the hay in the barns, he would be able to load ten bales more than the others. Again, she would be no less thankful to the others who performed work for her, but quietly reserved the right to mention to him secretly "Its too bad you aren't  strong enough to load fifteen". Always it was more than could be accomplished by any of the others, but far less in the eyes of the old woman.

     The entire winter passed and every day, the same thing happened. While the rest of the village praised the boy for his hard work and abilities, the old woman quietly tore him down with small offhanded and snide comments. Soon it was all the boy could think of. He no longer worked for the recognition of those who adored him for it, but concentrated his efforts solely on the good word of the old woman from whom it never came and who cared little either way.  It became a game, and it was a game he despised being forced to play, but also one that he would not lose. Very few occasions ever presented themselves to him that allowed him to voice his opinion, but even when he did, he found himself seriously outmatched.

     "Why is a 'thank you' so hard for you to give me?" he mentioned to her on one particularly cold morning after spending hours catching fish under the ice. "Isn't anything I do even worth a simple 'thank you"?"

     The woman didn't even look up as she  to cleaned the fish.

     "Why should I say thank you for something you were going to do anyway?"

     The boy was surprised but continued unabated.

     "Because if I hadn't done it there wouldn't have been any fish at all."

     "How many fish did you plan on catching?" she asked casually.

     "I planned on catching three fish. Which, by the way, you happen to be cleaning three of"

     The woman seemed to know exactly where this whole conversation was leading without ever having to leave the cutting board, and it pleased her to no end watch him work and squirm so hard for what she knew would be ruined by having  him asking for it at all.

     "And you mean to tell me that because you caught three fish I should say 'thank you'? Tell me, boy, what were you out there fishing for? Compliments, or fish?"

     "I was fishing for fish."

          She paused and eyed him with cool indifference before she continued.Like a lion circling prey.  She knew exactly what a 'thank you' meant, especially to him, but that did not mean that she was going to give him what he needed if it could be made to have him feel greedy by the asking of it. This was the best part of the game;knowing all of the rules and making everyone else abide by them by default, except for her.

     "A 'thank you' is given to a person who has gone out of their way to offer a generosity to another. You planned on catching three fish. And so you have. But that is all you were going to do in the first place. Tell me why I should give undue thanks for what you did, by not going out of your way to exceed?"
     The boy was baffled. He was not prone to a loss of words for anything or by anyone, but this woman had him feeling as though there wasn't a single place he could put his foot that wasn't going to result in a broken ankle.

 "No that's not what I meant....I mean, No, I mean...Because I deserve a 'thank you' from time to time."

     "For not going any farther out of your way than you were going to go by yourself anyway?"
    
     The boy left the farm house and trudged back out into the snow to try and collect his thoughts. The old woman continued to clean, and then cook the fish he caught. When he returned, he found that only small bits remained floating in the bottom of the cold pan. Without even looking up, the old woman could feel him looking at her in disbelief. She answered in the best way she could to deny both a meal and a 'thank you'.

"It's too bad you weren't good enough to catch four...but you knew that."
 

      The girl who loved him still watched him every day, but from farther away than she once had. He had responsibilities, and she was not about to have him choose one over the other. She still cherished every moment she could spend with him and took great efforts to make herself as attractive to him as she felt around him. She always too the time to ensure that she had her hair combed and brushed and with the very finest ribbon she could find to put in her hair for him. He loved her hair and was forever running his fingers through it when he held her in the meadow last Spring.

     The boy was no less aware of the young girl than he had ever been before. He still wished to give the girl everything that he could be, but measured it against what the old woman said and expected him to accomplish first.  Not The young girl he loved. But he still wanted her to see him as the very best he could be under any circumstance. If he was not the best, than the best was not what he was going to show her.  He set about a plan to give her something that he would do for her to show her that he really did admire her. Something that would outshine everything else. He decided to give her something that showed he noticed the efforts she put into herself to please him,but something that also showed how much it meant to him to know it.

It was no surprise to any of the other villagers that the farm boy loved her most of all, and late at night he confided the secret to his friends that he wished to give the beautiful farm girl something special for her hair. He did not know what quite yet, but it had to be special. Very special.

      Spring came, and when he thought the old woman would leave the village, she surprised him by saying that she would remain. Day after day he did as he always had for the village and day after day he received the praise from everyone but her.  He finally exploded in one great outburst that was completely unlike the boy. It was no small mystery that the boy lived for the pride and recognition of others, but when he suddenly lashed out with a fury and rage at being refused by the old woman, it surprised even the most hardened of the villagers. The outburst was well and truly deserved, but because no other villager had seen or heard what she had said to the boy, they all seemed baffled by his sudden change in behavior. The old woman simply stared at him as though she was just as surprised. This enraged the farm boy who attempted to explain in exasperated sentences what the old woman had said and done for months. But the villagers had seen none of it. All they saw was a boy who obviously had an overdeveloped sense of pride and was now exacting from one old woman a full payment. The old woman made no response at all and no defense for her actions. It was the most clever thing she had ever done. say nothing in her defense, and make her supposed inability to do so, be all the proof the village needed for the suspicion of guilt to fall to the farm boy.

     The farm boy stomped off in fury and left the old woman standing in the center of the village green. She looked up with pitying eyes and said to the villagers, "And then he just leaves me here, alone." She slowly turned to walk towards the farmhouse leaving the villagers to ponder the idea that the once kindly farm boy had not only ruined his reputation in the village for yelling at a poor defenseless woman, but reinforced it by having her walk home alone. The old woman shrugged her shoulders and lifted the hood of her shawl, but inside of that cowl, she smiled.

     When she entered the farm house the boy was still pacing back and forth in an absolute froth of anger and hurt.The boy raised his voice and loudly claimed that there was nothing he couldn't do better and that the only fault he had was that he wasn't capable of doing enough for her to be appeased.  The old woman remained as impassive as ever. Gossip had spread, however, during the long cold winter nights and the old woman knew what he planned for the girl that he loved.

The woman simply scoffed at his outburst but made a wager with the boy.  She told him that the only reason he accomplished the things that he did was that he never did anything that was hard for him to do.  If he could prove to her that he could do something the others could NOT, though, then she would be more than happy to tell both he, and the village, that he was, indeed, everything he claimed to be.

     "What is it that you want me to show you I can do? the boy said.

     "Pull this chain through the trunk of the oak in the center of the village"
     The boy seemed a little surprised at the expectation. As though the absurdity of it in some way invalidated her claim.

     "How is something as pointless as pulling a chain through a tree going to show what I can do? It's an absolute waste of time."

     But the woman knew exactly what she was doing and how she could get the boy to do exactly what he wanted him to do. She took the one thing he needed, and used it.

     "Well, if you can't do it, or it's just too hard for you to do..." she replied plainly, letting the rest of the statement be finished by him in an way he so chose.

The farm boy, proud as ever, and determined to prove her wrong,accepted the wager.  The following morning old woman tied a chain around an oak tree and insulted him once again by saying he was not enough of a man to pull the oak tree over with it. If he did, however, she would reward him with her most prized possessions. It was a gold and silver hair brush and comb and a woven hair ribbon made completely of spun gold. The boy knew instantly  who he would give it to. The woman swore they would be his to have on only one condition, and that was that he never tell anyone why he did the task she demanded or what the prize would be. The boy gladly accepting knowing that upon completion he would get both vindication from the village for the accomplishment and the prize for his love.

The following morning the villagers woke to find the boy  with a length of chain wrapped around his waist and then around the oak tree in the center of the village. It was still early  but already beads of sweat poured from his brow as he leaned against the chain and dug his feet into the dirt to haul against the trunk of the tree. 

The village elders came to him and asked him what he was doing. He remembered what the old woman had said and he simply replied "What I have to do".

     For awhile, it was a curiosity and it brought the attention of everyone. Most sat on the stoops of their houses finding his behavior completely pointless but fully expecting this young man to pull the tree over by noon. But the first day ended and late into the night he pulled and tugged. When the lanterns were lit for the night he unchained himself and went to bed, too exhausted to do anything else. He did not notice the young woman against the railing of the fence who had watched him all day long. When he left, so did she. She lifted the lantern from the post of the fence and turned away into the night.
   
     The following morning, the villagers again found the young man chained to the tree. They thought that perhaps today would be the day, but it was Spring, and fields needed to be tilled and planted.  He explained that he would love to till and plow with the rest of the village, but that this was something he had to do. They shrugged their shoulders and left him to his labor.  The old woman smiled darkly as she walked to the fields with the others, but knew he would not stop pulling at the tree.  And the young girl, continued to watch from the fence.

     Day after day he pulled at the tree. Finally, the young girl came to him and asked him what he was doing?  He replied that he could not tell her why he was doing it. He said he loved her dearly but that  he had a plan and she needed to trust him.  That was enough for the young girl. She touched his head and wiped the sweat from it, saying she believed in him.  She brought him water during the day, and late at night she often brought him a cloak. It was the only time she had with him since he began this labor, but still she would not leave. She never asked why he would need to do this, but always told him he wished he would not and believed in him regardless. She would leave him, but she never went far. Every day he was there, so was she.

Seasons came and went and every day the boy pulled. The chain had bit deep into the trunk of the tree, though, and the only thing he would say when he was occasionally asked if he was done was "One more day". The villagers finally conceded that he was no longer useful to the rest of the village, but that he had provided enough in his time to earn the right to do what he felt was important.  Day after day he worked, day after day the young girl watched and waited, and day after day the old woman simply smiled and ignored what he did.

Years passed until the young man was a strong and powerful fully grown man. Those were the years that the chain looked as though it would break before the man ever did. Giant muscles rippled and flexed as he hauled on the taught chain and it sunk deeper and deeper into the meat of the tree. "One more day" he continued to chant until it became almost the only thing he would say at all.

     The village continued on with its own labors and responsibilities until the man was nothing more than an oddity. No longer did people know him and refer to him in other villages as the gracious boy who shared everything he had. People still came to see him, but with his old life now dwindled into the past, he was simply known as "that man chained to the tree".

Year after year passed. He had always been a very youthful looking man, and hard work did not take from it, but years passed nonetheless. Year after year after year.

Babies were born to the village, children were raised, marriages continued to be made to other villagers, and those who died were buried to have their places taken by their children who bore children of their own.And still he pulled against the chain.

Finally, one crisp Fall morning there was a loud and resounding crack. The man had pulled the chain completely through the trunk of the tree. He tumbled to the ground as the villagers poured from their homes to see what the sound was. While they had not forgotten that a man had spent his life pulling a chain against a tree, they had forgotten why he did it completely and that he may indeed accomplish it one day.

     The massive tree lay toppled in the center of the square. The great trunk, sawed completely in half by the giant chain, bore huge gashes and scars. The chain itself had been polished to a bright silver in the places where it raked back and forth over the hard dense wood.   As the man stood up and removed the chain from his shoulders and back, the old woman came from her house.  She said nothing as she approached, but her face was a mean and wretched smile. The man was used to seeing this though, and raised himself to his full height as he looked down at her preparing to speak to her and finally receive his rewards. Both the spun gold sash, the comb and brush of silver and gold and the recognition he deserved.

      The old woman simply looked at him and smugly told him that apparently she was wrong about him and that he truly was as capable of doing anything he put his mind to. She then turned to the rest of the village and stated clearly what the villagers already knew. She turned and looked at him as though to confirm to him that she had lived up to her end of the pointless condition of their bargain.


     She reached inside of her cloak and pulled the sash from it.  It was as though she had pulled the sun from her pocket and there wasn't a spot on it that didn't gleam like the sun.  The villagers stared in awe at the amazing woven cloth. The man said no more and took the sash.  The old woman  said nothing either as she walked away. The villagers knew nothing of the rest of the story and she wasn't about to tell them either.

     The man took the sash and carefully walked on wobbly legs that had grown accustomed to pulling and not walking. But soon, he was striding quickly, and then running to present the sash to his beloved young girl he loved so much. He truly believed that this was what she would want most of all.

     When he arrived at her farmhouse he knocked on the door.  A small and frail woman dressed in i cloak with a cowl answered the door. He had never seen the woman before but asked if he could please speak with the young woman who she lived with.  The woman asked what she wanted with her as she is not accustomed to having strange men come calling without notice.

     The man explained that he was the man who was in the square who had been pulling the chain through the tree. The tree, he proudly stated, had been felled with the strength of a single man and a chain and that as his prize he was given a golden sash and that he wished to give it to the young girl.

      The old woman asked to see the sash and he gladly unwrapped it. Again the sash blazed brilliantly in the sun. He explained that he wished to give it to the girl to put into her hair so that all the world could see how happy she  made him and what he would give to  the woman he loved. The woman began to weep.
    
     "What is a young girl going to do with a golden sash presented to her from an old man?"
     The man was taken aback a bit and seemed surprised that she would call him old, but as he looked down at his hands holding the sash he was surprised to see the hands of an old man and not the strong youthful muscles of youth. It didn't matter though. He still loved her and she would still love him because of what he had done for her.
      The small frail woman held the sash in her crippled and gnarled fingers as she spoke.
"Why would you give something like this to such an insignificant sprout of  girl?"

     The man beamed proudly and told the woman that he wanted to give her something that she needed and that she could be proud of having. That she was worth what it took to give it to her and that she deserved it.

     "And you thought that this was what she needed?" she said, as she held the sash as though it had become as irrelevant as a stone in a soup pot.

    The man looked confused but answered with the only thing he could understand.
"Yes" he replied plainly.

     The woman invited him in as she shook her head in disbelief and led him to a small wooden table. She offered him tea as she sat down slowly and carefully across the table from him while she continued to talk to him.

     "I've spoken to that young girl about you and about this very  thing every single night since you began pulling on that tree.  Did you notice her out there? She would sit against the fence and wait for you, and then late at night she would come home and we would talk about how she wished you would stop. What it is that she needed did not come from what you would gain from pulling a chain through a tree. And how could she? She was only aware of what you did, but not why. You believed that what she needed came from what would be achieved by proving you were strong enough to pull a chain through the tree, and yet what she really needed was merely to know that the man she adored would.  What that young girl needed was not the chain, or the tree, or the comb or the brush or the sash of spun gold. She needed the one thing that did all of the work but neglected to see who it was asked from. She merely needed the man."

 "Foolish old man" she whispered quietly. And then she began to weep.

     The man felt a great sadness for the woman who sat crying in front of him, but had no idea what to do to help her.

     "Can I see her?" he asked as carefully as he could.

     "Of course you can see her" she said.

     And with that, she removed the cowl of her cloak and let what was left of her thin, and graying hair spill from  her head.  He did not recognize her at first. But as soon as she looked at him with those green eyes he suddenly realized who she was. Before he could say anything the woman burned into him with bright green eyes, but all that came from her mouth was love.

     "The tree did not give you pride. You had that already. You simply refused to see it from those who gave it to You thought that by expecting it should be proven to a person who couldn't see it at all. That is, unless you were made to prove it by doing something as useless and wasteful as pulling a chain through a tree. The tree did not give you time. it wasted time by having you spend it  pulling a chain through a tree. You did not get to share who you were to me or to anyone else by being strong enough to do it. you wasted that as well,  by pulling a chain through a tree. Most of all you expended effort. Effort that was so well applied to those around you and who benefited from it and admired you for it. We all knew the effort was within you, but it was spent pulling a chain through the trunk of a tree. And for what, love? For what? A chain?"

 "The second most beautiful thing I have ever seen is upon this table right now, but the most cherished was what was left next to that tree.  All you have, my dear sweet love, is a chain. The recognition you were promised by remaining silent and the pride you hoped to have meant nothing to a person who had no need of it, and to have the rest of the village be told of what they knew already took nothing from that old witch at all. It wasn't hers to give or take. It was yours. Even the tree will be cut to firewood by the morrow."

     The old woman smiled at him, though, and said "But you still have me. You had me long before you ever attached yourself to a chain, and through all of it I watched from the fence. You always had me."

     The old man smiled back and he could finally tell her that he loved her and that she was worth all that he did. She reminded him that she knew he was worth it long before he ever started.  They agreed to meet the following morning and that they would spend their lives together and never again look back.

     The man went back to his house and for the first time slept soundly and contented. He had finished his labor and could now spend his time with other pursuits and love freely who he wished. He closed his eyes, and dreamed of his beautiful young girl with the spun gold sash. He had not dreamed in so very long.

     Late that night the happy old woman with a sash of gold held against her chest,  breathed one last time, and passed away.

     She was buried beside the fence where she had watched the man pull a chain through a mighty oak. He knelt beside her and combed her hair with the silver and gold combs and brushes and then kissed her. As he wept, his tears fell upon the golden sash that held her thin gray hair.  They carried her to her grave, and everyone in the village, those who had spent their lives enjoying her and all she had to offer, wept at her passing.
     As he looked out among the people who had spent their lives with her, he noticed the old woman standing in the back of a throng of people. She did not weep. Instead, she did the one thing that made all the accomplishment and burning brightness of pride in the world shrink away to a meaningless speck of ash.

 She smiled.
     
   

ANOTHER EPIPHANY

   This entry is not a story at all. It is just a way of recording an epiphany I had after someone else gave me the ability to do something I had forgotten how to do.  What had resulted from it slowly sneaked its way inside of me and nestled in deep to grow into something enormous and toxic; like a cancer I could not see and therefore didn't exist, or useful in the same way an opium addict weighs the effects he wants but fails to see the ever so pervasive addiction. It managed to change the way I perceived everything around me and how others saw me as well. Like my own favorite hero, Don Quixote, the inner frustrations manifesting inside of him to a paranoia that had a brave and noble hero transformed into a lunatic, tilting windmills and believing them to be giants.
    

    I am stunned with the ease that something like this can infect a person in general, but to have had it happen to me, and to have me completely unaware of the consequences of how others saw me because of it, is unbelievable.  Being able to have a person show it to me was about the same as expecting a person to continually hold up a VERY lifelike portrait of what it was I wanted to see about myself and having them say to over and over "Do you see it? Look closer." I kept telling myself I was listening and that the real problem was that they weren't understanding that I was no idiot and that "YES" I can see it. I can see it just as plainly as I always see it, and "YES, I did look close at the god damned painting", and that the only problem I have with it now is that the person holding it for me isn't listening to what I am telling them about what it is I see in it.

And then it moved.

     Suddenly I realized that all this time I had been POSITIVE that they were the one too weak to comprehend what I was telling them, that in fact, it was me that was too weak to realize what it was they were pointinting at. It isn't a portrait at ALL. It's a mirror. It is a reflection of myself. And the uglier it got the harder it was for me to see it for what it was. Even worse was that the reason it was so hard to hold up was that what I wanted it to be was not what they appreciated it for. I was spending so much time expecting them to apply paint to a portrait, at the same time they were becoming exasperated by  trying to convince me of the lunacy of applying paint to a mirror.  It doesn't matter one damn bit how carefully you apply paint or that you cared to use the very best paint at all. Not if that you are doing is painting over a mirrored reflection of yourself and destroying the use of the mirror entirely.

     How this actually happened is a bit clearer to me now, and when it happened makes it easier to understand how it got into me in the first place. It started two years ago and, like most diseases, got me when my defenses were down and I was at my most vulnerable. I had come back from Afghanistan and a situation where, even as scary and frustrating as it was, I had defined myself as capable and powerful and needed.  I was an authority for what I knew and did it well. People relied on me when they couldn't do it on their own, and I had managed to become trusted so much that they never gave it a second thought.  It was EXACTLY what I had worked for my whole life.  What I cam home to, however, was the exact opposite. Not only was there no way of continuing what I had accomplished there, but there was no need of it from the people around me. I became less and less needed and more and more secondary.  Finally I had completely failed even myself and spent two days on the floor of the bathroom. No one even knew to look for me.

     While I sat there, I began to think. I had a feeling inside of me that was undeniably an anger and a rage but that had absolutely no outlet for it.  It may have been what finally got me to pick myself up off the floor and use it as a crutch to walk, but I quickly adapted it as a prosthesis and kept it for something I did not need. It became a part of me, little by little, until I was back to being able to move around and think again with the same amount of energy I had before, but now was being driven by something that was no longer myself. I stayed angry because I thought that was all that was left of me, and I used the anger to justify the resentment I had, and the loneliness I felt. It became the easy out excuse for what it was I was not being seen as, and the longer I used it, the less of me could be seen through it. I became weaker and weaker, and less of myself, with every passing day.  Any energy I had to do anything was now being expended as a way of earning favor rather than defining myself with it. The harder I tried, the more exasperated I became by feeling that the only way to not fail was to keep doing it with this toxic thing rather than myself.  I began to believe that I had to earn everything rather than be defined by what I already was but couldn't find the way to express.  The result to others, however, is a slow miserable building frustration with watching a person define themselves by nothing but a series of accomplishments based on fear of rejection rather than by the truer person I once was.

     I have very amazing friends. That is not a point of pride for me at all, but more for them and the abilities that so many people seem to miss in them. More often now, I need to swallow a bit of my own arrogance and undue pride and admit that I miss it in them as well.  What one of them did for me by telling me that what they saw made me seem weaker in their eyes was a horrible thing to have to learn.  Had they not done it, however, I am sure no one else would have known or cared enough at all to say it, and it gave me the ability to see what was right under my own nose.  I am very good at being a problem solver and spend a great deal of my time looking forward and preplanning my defenses. But sometimes, the enemy at the gate gets in and breeds and army within the very walls I pride myself on being able to keep up. To say that it was plain as the nose on my face is useless as most people have no idea what's there at all unless someone else tells you. It's like eating a hotdog with mustard and then trying to look serious with mustard up your cheek. It would stay there all damn day unless someone cared enough to tell you.

     What this awareness has been able to do is to allow me to look at me from the outside and see what it was I was doing with a different perspective. Not in the way I saw what I was doing, but they way others took what I was doing. That is far more important than it seems because that was my intention in the first place, wasn't it? To have them see what I needed them to see?  Well what good is it if I had already preconceived what I needed from them without ever considering what it was they ACTUALLY perceived from it?  If those two things are different, then what I did, regardless of the intention, is a wasted effort.  I see and hear about so many people who are furious at all the work and effort they do and are unrealized and disrespected for it.  Maybe the reason is that what we expect isn't always going to be what we hoped if we are allowing the toxic and cancerous things to be defining us rather than our own true nature.

     The worst of this whole toxicity has been my assumption that the only way for it to make sense is with what I brought to its definition. My definition, however, had been skewed and convoluted by something else, and no matter how hard I tried to justify it or reason it, my only solution was to expect others to react to it. I spent time saying "you should" or "you shouldn't" or "why aren't you doing it this way" and at the same time kept telling people that I understood.  That wasn't true at all.  I did understand the situation completely, but what I didn't understand was that the solution was something that had to come from me internally, and I couldn't do it with a mass of tangled vines wrapped around who I really was. I had been trained into believing that the solution to what I wanted was to be done by someone else adapting to my new toxic environment, and not myself that had to work to remove it in order to be seen for what I truly am. The more I tried, the more the toxicity wound up defining me and actually worked to drive away what I was trying to bring closer. I often refer to people who do this as creating a "self fulfilling yet damning" prophecy. Its like trying to attract fireflies into a jar by spraying a flame thrower in the yard and then being upset that your jar isn't as full as everyone else.  Well, Boo hoo ya' big baby. Get a tissue and put down the overly dramatic flame thrower.

     The best thing about all of this is that I am not one to allow a weakness within me once it has been pointed out. Not only pointed out,  directly tied to the degeneration of what it was I was trying to rebuild.  It's true I have my own vices I choose for myself, but weakness is not something I am prone to simply allow and ignore in myself by pretending they do not exist. Being able to see it for what it really is and how it has been controlling what I can and can't do has become instantly enlightening. I slept like a real human being for the first time in months last night and had no problem being able to define what it is I have to offer to other people. Those things are mine to give and are far better than what had grown beyond my control. Now that it is out, and I am back to seeing who I am without it, I will either be seen for it in others, or I will not. It is no longer a rampant weed that makes me less of who I am and makes me  feel as though the only thing I am being measured by others is the size of the weed. It was a self induced brain washing, and I wanted it to or not, it took away the very best that I have that makes me unique. I only hope that by writing this, that other people see their own weeds and stop for just a moment to look in under their own walls to make sure that what they fear the most hasn't snuck in to be counted in the ranks of defenders of your castle. It is EASY to have it happen, and once you believe that what you perceive in yourself is normal, you fail to see that others no longer see anything else of you at all.

THE MAPLE AND THE MAIDEN

     Once upon a time, long before maidens were expected to marry men without any forethought or knowledge of their own about what type of person they would or could be, they were sent by their mothers into  a strange and illuminating forest.  The forest was like any other forest that you may have seen except that this one was filled with  very special trees. These were the trees that knew the secrets of men. Not just particular secrets, but all of them. Why they thought the way they did and what they prattled and boasted on about to each other. Why everything men did, and how another could be convinced of it what they are by what they do and why it is being done, rather than  Better than a tree that knew the secrets of men and said little, were the trees that could talk and would tell women everything they wanted to know as long as they realized that some questions need not be spoken to be answered completely.  These trees, however, were the rarest of all.

     It had always come as a great surprise to the men, however, to realize that regardless of how well they thought they could convince or trick women to believe what they were doing was honorable or fair, that the women almost always saw it coming long before.

     The foreknowledge of these secrets, and how the women  came to know them, baffled the men. Soon they gave up trying to figure out all together or where it came from.  Women simply knew. Had the men been as honest as they were foolhardy, they may have confided in each other that women knew far more than they were led to believe, but men are notoriously silent about their failings, even to each other. Had they been able to discuss it, the ruse would have been revealed. They never did, however, and as a result, there was no opportunity for a woman to be blindsided or tricked. Wise mothers  knew the secrets revealed and passed it to their daughters. Never once was a word spoken to their husbands of this.

     Instead, the women devised a story to inform the men as to where their daughters would be off to when they turned thirteen.The mothers wold tell the men of the village that they were off to learn how to be good wives and mothers, and that was enough to have them waving goodbye while leaning on their pitchforks bragging  to their boys  about how dutiful the women were to sen away their daughters for them to become docile  and compliant women.  The boys would leer and clap their hands eager for the wonderful stock of women that would return to give them exactly what their fathers claimed they would receive, but had forgotten about what their wives knew when they tried it on their own wives.

Most of the maidens maidens traveled here together when they turned thirteen,  but each would leave on their own when they felt they learned all they could of themselves and the trees who knew the secrets of men. It was suggested that young maidens learn what it was they respected and admired of themselves and would gladly give to a man by asking the trees what they would give in return. In the process the knowledge would reveal what it was that could be expected of a man.  Sometimes it took only a few months, and sometimes it took years. I know it sounds strange, but its true.

Mostly

     This story is not about all maidens, however. This is a story of one maiden in particular who learned  as much as any other maiden before her, but had the unlikely gift of learning from two trees instead of just one. She is also the very last maiden to ever journey into the forest to learn the secrets of men from the trees that could talk.  She didn't know it at the time, though, and when her story started, she was just like any other maiden.

     Maidens, for reasons we are simply unable to understand, seem to develop, very early, and quite unbelievably to the rest of us, the idea that what it is that they need is based on what it is they want. When they are very young, and before their journey into the forest, they would chatter to each other about what the man they would marry was going to look like or what he would say to them. They would comment and boast to each other about the lengths they were going to go to earn the respect of these men, but almost never talked about what it was they expected to receive from them. They never knew to ask, though, because no other person they talked with knew either.it had always just been assumed that what they were going to receive was what they asked for.  That is all fine and good for an honest man with honest intentions, but it never occurred to a single maiden that if that were the case, there would never be a reason to go into the forest in the first place.  It was simply something that was done this way because it had always been done this way. It would have been very useful to know that  when a maiden believes that what a man wants defines for herself what she supposedly deserves, and therefore needs,  a very horrible thing can happen.

     The maidens had traveled for many days to get to the forest. They camped together for one last night before traveling alone into the glade to search for the tree that would be most like the man they would marry and learn all of his secrets.  Most did not sleep the night before.  Their minds constantly raced with how they would seek out the tree they believed they wanted. This particular maiden fell asleep immediately,though, for she knew for certain what kind of tree to search for.  She wanted an Oak tree. Everything the Oak would tell her would be exactly the information she needed to make finding the man she wanted be exactly what she needed.  She drifted off right after supper to the sound of tossing and turning from the other maidens and the occasional question about what time it was and was it dawn yet.

"Foolish girls" she mumbled to herself.

     The following morning the maiden said goodbye to the other girls and marched directly out into the glade before most were even awake.  The sun had not even finished rising when she came upon her oak tree at the far end of the glade. It was not exactly where she expected to find it and the ground was so wet that it clung to her shoes in muddy cakes.  She decided that this was not the type of place where she wished to be learning anything.  She could  see a few of the other girls now wandering about the wide glade. Two of them approached her as she knelt in the cold mud looking at the small tree.

"Are you going to be an Oak tree?" she asked the small sapling jutting out of the mud.

"The sapling grinned at her as though he knew something she did not and said
"I am sure that there are a great many things that I might be, but I won't be any of them all on my own."

Well I have been looking for an oak tree. I want to know all of the secrets of men who are just like oak trees. He has to be strong and powerful and be able to protect me as much as I will protect him, and if I work hard, It will give me as many acorns as I am worth for all that I will do. Can you make Acorns?"

      The small sapling shrugged and said "Well I guess you will have to put in some effort and then wait and see, won't you."

     The maiden was not overly convinced, but it sounded so sure of itself. She liked that confidence in him. Surely a typical and ordinary tree would not expect time and effort from a maiden in order to produce what it had to offer....unless it truly was an oak tree and expected to be shown that a worthy maiden was willing to expend the effort  to earn the right to what it said it would give.

    The other girls laughed and skipped as they approached her. She grimaced at the obvious dis concern these girls seemed to have for such a serious task as learning the secrets of men.  As they got closer,however first one girl, and then the other, made a look of disgust as they realized that where it was the maiden had found her tree was brackish and damp.

What are you doing all the way out here?" one of the girls asked.

"I found my oak tree."

     One of the girls peered down at the small sapling as though it were on display  underneath a magnifying glass and that what had been made clearer to view, shouldn't have been at all.

"That's an Oak?" She asked with a look of unsuppressed disdain.

     She spoke to the two girls, but was looking down at the sapling when she replied.

"I will wait and see".

     The other two girls had no intention of standing in the mud any longer and decided they would look elsewhere.  The two of them began trudging off when one of them suggested she find another oak in a drier spot.  She wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of learning all of these secrets in the mud, herself, but  the sapling knew what she was thinking at that moment. He suggested that he simply go with her to a place more suitable to her liking.

"You could just transplant me to where you want to be. It isn't that hard for a maiden like you." The sapling replied, as though it made no difference to him one way or the other, and could care less whether she believed him or not.

     The maiden considered this for a moment before a thought occurred to her.

"But if I move you, will you still be able to produce the acorns and give me the knowledge I need?"

     This maiden was smart, and even now, did not falter in her goal to retrieve exactly what she intended to find.  The sapling , however, was undetered and quickly reminded her that what he had to offer required that she put time and energy and most importantly effort into him in order to receive it anyway, so why not take him?

     And with that, the maiden leaned down and carefully dug the soil out from around the roots of the sapling and carried it back to the center of the glade where she could be seen by every other maiden making the extra effort to work for what she knew she would get.

    
     With the sapling cradled in the front of her dress she carefully scanned the glade for a suitable place to learn the secrets she needed.  There was a spot with an outcropping of rocks that would have made an excellent place to stay warm, but the ground was too hard and rocky for the sapling to find purchase.  There was a spot next to a pond, but wind would blow ceaselessly and perhaps damage the leaves of the tiny oak.  She decided on a spot that was close to a very large shade tree that was very near to the center of the field that still afforded her a view of everything else. It was harder for her but easier for the sapling, and believed this to be her first test of dedication and sacrifice that would earn her the saplings favor.  Carefully she dug in the ground and transplanted the sapling to her more suitable vantage point where she could watch everything around her and they could see her.  It was perfect, but as she looked about, she found that there were not very many maidens even close enough to hear her if she felt the need to talk. Comparing different stories from different maidens about their trees would be very difficult, indeed.  Best to just concentrate on what the sapling had to say all on her own, she thought.
 


     A large shade tree had been sleeping a very long time when it was suddenly awoken by the sound of a small girl digging in the ground beneath him.  He could not see her unless he swayed back and forth because his lower limbs were so broad.  He watched her as she toiled in the dirt and made every effort to accommodate a small sapling she was planting in the ground.  She cleared away all of the grass in a circle around it and then lined it with stones she carried from the outcropping to make it feel more protected and to keep away weeds.  She walked back and forth endlessly from the pond and then back to the sapling with handfuls of water, and she sat as close to it as she could to ensure that everyone knew that it was hers.

     The large shade tree was very impressed with this maiden.  She was young and strong, and very eager to do what she believed was necessary to grow a tree. Day after day the shade tree watched her put every moment she was awake and every ounce of her strength into maintaining her tree. It was so important to her that after a few seasons of watching her, he realized that she did all of these actions automatically. She no longer thought of herself at all and had resigned herself to believing that it was her job to make the sapling succeed or be the cause of the failure if it did not.The large shade tree had, up until now, decided that it was not his place to talk to the maiden as she already had a tree of her own with whom she was attempting to learn the  secrets.  It was not his place to intrude near  another tree's maiden or the secrets they would be offering to her, but it was also noticed by the shade tree that this small tree was doing nothing of the kind. It was true, that the maiden had already defined herself for seasons, and now years well beyond what would have been expected by any other maiden under the same circumstances, yet this particular sapling would have none of it except to demand more of herself rather than give so much as a whisper to her for the attempt. It had grown lazy and contemptuous thinking that it could get from her anything it wanted and she would still give her time and labor unconditionally. All of the other maidens had long since abandoned the glade and returned home and to men  yet the most tenacious and steadfast of them all was still waiting. The bargain had been broken by the sapling, not by her. But so too,  would the bargain of non interference between trees be broken by the shade tree. It would be broken, however, for the benefit to the maiden, not the benefit of the sapling. To remain impartial was no longer acceptable if it robbed the will of the maiden solely for its own benefit. The shade tree would not allow this to continue either way.

   The other maidens would no longer coming to see her either. For awhile, they were just as eager to talk and to compare what they had learned with her, but with nothing from her to offer  them except the same silent diligence, they stopped altogether.  What good was a diligent maiden if she had gained nothing so far from her efforts.  She would sit day after day and count the number of maidens on the field. Every season the number got smaller and smaller. At one point she even considered visiting the other maidens to tell them what had happened, but by the time she had gained the courage to do so, there were none close enough for her to call out to that would hear her.  She watched them far off in the distance wink out like small stars until it was only her and the sapling. 

     The giant shade tree bent at its top branch and called down to the maiden.

     "I am sorry if it has taken me so long to speak to you. I didn't want you to be confused by the voices of two trees when what you wished for was merely one."

       The maiden had been alone for so long that she immediately jumped from where she was sitting and  crouched close to the sapling believing the voice to be his.  She was so completely convinced that she had finally earned the right to know the secrets of men from the sapling, that she was incapable of remembering that there were other voices in the world. She waited patiently for a very long time, but the sapling said absolutely nothing.

     a slight breeze blew through the meadow as she waited, but it was obvious to the Shade tree that she was unaware that the voice came from him.

     "It isn't he who speaks to you now any more than he ever has. It is me."

     The maiden was a mix of emotions as she realized, herself, that it was not the sapling that spoke to her. She was crestfallen that it was not her tree, but at the same time was excited that anyone at all had thought to do so."

"Hello?"

     The maiden looked out into the glade expecting to see another maiden she must have failed to notice. Maybe perhaps in the tall grass or among the rocks.  There was no one at all.

"Up here. Behind you."

     The maiden followed both directions simultaneously and spun about on her heel as she craned her head skyward to notice the tree as something completely different than what she had always thought it to be.  Up until now, she thought it was simply a normal tree mixed in with the more intelligent, wiser ones of the glade. 

     "Oh. Hello. I thought you were just...you know...a tree."

"I AM just a tree."

"No I know you are a tree. I just didn't realize you were a special  tree."

"And what makes a tree special as opposed to any other tree, fair maiden?

     The maiden immediately realized she had insulted the tree but didn't realize it had led the question directly to where he wanted it to go. 
     "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you.." the maiden stammered as she tried to correct herself "..I just meant that trees that talk... are special."

"And those that do not?"

     The maiden looked for the quickest way out of this social error as best she could.

"Are not so special. "

"Remember you said that, maiden, it believe it will become of great importance  later."
    
     The great shade tree straightened itself in the light breeze and looked back down toward her and then to  the small tree beside to her.  He had no intention of making this wonderful maiden feel even the least bit uncomfortable, so he pretended as though he had just noticed her without leading on that he had, instead, been watching her for many years.

     "I see you have been tending to a tree."

     "Yes I have. A very special kind of tree. This one is a talking tree, too.This one is my tree. I chose an Oak.  I am here to learn the secrets of this tree so that when I return I will be able to find the man I deserve and who deserves me.

The shade tree looked at the small tree but spoke to the maiden.

"Did you choose that oak...or did that oak choose you?"

     The shade tree continued to stare at the small tree next to the maiden. It glared up at him defiantly, but said nothing.

"What do you mean? It's the same thing either way isn't it? I mean, I am here with this tree and this tree is here with me.  It really doesn't matter at this point whether I chose it or it chose me."

"I would beg to differ."

     The maiden looked perplexed as she suddenly realized that this tree, although it was speaking far more than the one she spent her time tending to in the past, was doing so in such a way as to  make far more questions inside of her own head than it was answering for her.  The only thing wrong with it was that this tree asked questions her mind already knew  the answers to, and that was rather frightening.

     "Why would you object to that?"

"Because it was not the tree that was sent into the forest to learn the ways of a woman to benefit from it as a man. You were sent here as a woman to learn the ways of man from a tree."

     The maiden was instantly furious, but swallowed her fury as soon as she realized that the great shade tree was absolutely correct. While she believed that she had every intention of finding herself an oak tree, it almost seemed, that up to this point, it was she who had done the majority of the work to get the small tree to where it was now with little being returned in like or in kind. As though the oak had singled her out from all the other maidens as the one to move him to where he wanted to be. She was the legs to the tree that had none but could be moved about by her nonetheless. She was the arms that didn't have to fetch the water as long as she would fetch it. It could speak but didn't, and because it didn't had nothing to be gained for her or anyone else who wished to be near her. It was as though she had given her body to a tree and it had rooted her to the ground.

     The maiden had had enough of this talk. It was distracting her from what she expected herself to do unerringly and convinced that the small tree was aware of the fact that she was responsible for it. How could she not be when he hadn't done anything but sit there? Whatever this shade tree intended, it was obvious that it had irritated her oak tree and that she would now need to redouble her efforts to correct it in the eyes of the oak tree.

     "I am sorry"  she replied curtly "I have alot of work to do and I don't have the time to be talking right now. Perhaps later when I get a bit of free time, but right now, I have a tree to grow and eventually acorns to harvest and all kinds of secrets I need to have revealed to me. I am sure that as soon as there are acorns that the secrets will be revealed and then I will have a bit of time to relax and talk a bit before I go back to the village to find a man who is like an oak tree."

     The shade tree bowed his great trunk and told the maiden that regardless of how busy she got he would always be glad to help her any way he could and that it really was no trouble at all.


      Seasons passed ,and year after year the shade tree waited for the maiden to receive her acorns, but her oak tree would not give them up. Late at night, when she worried herself about what would be needed the following day, the shade tree would talk with her and suggest different ways she may be able to accomplish what it was she desired to achieve.  But every day was the same as the one before, and every day after was the same as today.  But still the shade tree talked to her and enjoyed all of the things the maiden talked and thought about.  He found out that she was very charming and witty ,and very quick with a joke.  Most of all he found out that this maiden had intended to ask very intelligent and thoughtful questions from her oak when it decided she was worthy of them.  Not the usual questions of how and what, but the deeper, more meaningful questions that involved 'why'. Questions that started with 'why' often had her delving deep inside of herself to pull out truths and open admissions that separated her from nearly every person he had ever come across, but the best part of these small quiet talks was that she found herself liking the maiden that she was inside for the way that what she said was received by the large shade tree.

     The shade tree cared less and less each day for what he thought he would have taken from the sapling  by not speaking to her right away. It became obvious that he never would speak enough to her to look that deeply into her, nor would have ever thought to have her go into those places inside of herself to find even greater things. What he knew he would always know, but what he knew he would never tell her. The secrets were never going to be revealed to this maiden.  The shade tree believed in her as much as the maiden believed in herself, however, and when she asked for advice, he would give it to her.

     One late night in the Summer, when the leaves of the shade tree were the largest and greenest they would be all year, the maiden admitted that she had been waiting for the sapling to speak to her.  She had done as it asked, but relied on what it was that she was doing to let him decide when she should be spoken to.  The shade tree did not like this one bit, and it pained him to offer what he feared the most as the best solution for the maiden.The shade tree suggested that perhaps she should talk to it herself. Plants grew better when you talked to them. He should know. He was, after all, a tree himself and absolutely loved the sound of her voice and what she thought that there was almost nothing he would not do at her asking. She did go and talk directly to the sapling, but nothing ever changed. It remained exactly as it always had been

 More time went by and the shade tree offered as much as he could to the stubborn maiden.When it was hot out and the sun beat down onto the glade, he provided her shade by stretching his longest branches over her while she worked. Still she sat and waited with her back turned toward him while she tended to the small, unchanging tree.  When it was raining, his broad leaves blocked most of the rain, and when it was bitterly cold, he shielded her from the wind. He gave her a place to lean against when she was tired and rested her head against the moss covered roots that grew high on the edges to cradle her like a bed. Deep in the winter, he often shed as much wood as she needed to keep her fire going, and she nestled in deep against his trunk while she waited for the smaller tree to grow or speak.

     One day, late in the Fall, the great shade tree was ready to lose its red and golden leaves when he heard the maiden crying.  She had cried with him many times before, but this was an angry grief that held so much more than mere sadness. This grief had time associated with it. Not just for what it took to weep, but every single moment that had accumulated doing it in the past. It had the sound of pain and suffering on deaf ears, of sweat and of toil, and of blood.  The shade tree knew immediately that this was not the time to be silent if ever there was one.  He called the maiden up to him. She sobbed and said she didn't need anyone.  He ignored her and continued to talk to her until she stood slowly, plodded toward him and crumpled into a heap against the great trunk of the shade tree.  The tree shook its branches until the warm dry leaves covered the maiden in a soft warm bed.

     "I don't have anything left to give." the maiden said as she curled up into a ball inside the leaves.
"I am tired and there is nothing left of me to give and I haven't got the strength anymore to try."

"Can I ask you a question, maiden" the great tree said.

"Yes. Always."

     "What was it you wanted to know and learn from this forest and from the trees? Exactly."
     The maiden wiped the tears from her face and then replied in a very thin quiet voice.

     "I wanted to know that there was something inside of the tree, and in a man, that would make it all worth it.I wanted to be able to be  provided for by someone with something I could see, and touch, and feel,and taste, and even to smell. I wanted to be kept cool in the summer under it and I wanted everyone to see how well I could grow an oak tree of my own. I watered when it said it needed water and it didn't grow, I let the roots dry out when it said it had too much and it didn't grow. I pruned its branches when they became unruly, and I tended the ground underneath and kept everything away from it it told me would do it harm. And most of all I wanted something that came from inside itself that would benefit me worth as much as  as I put into it."

"Did you get any of that?"

     "No I didn't. I gave what it wanted and I did it by taking all of me and pushing everything away until the only thing I had left was what I put into the tree. Everything else is gone"

The open meadow got very quiet for a moment except for the sound of the breeze through the leaves of the tree above her. The great tree waited to see if she would continue.  When she didn't he made a very blunt statement.

"Maiden, You asked the wrong tree the wrong question."

"What?"

"You really didn't know much about trees at all when you arrived here did you?"

"No. Nothing as a matter of fact. I just knew I was supposed to take care of one to have it take care of me."

"And what did you know of men before you arrived here?"

"The same. Nothing."

"And yet you willfully walked into the forest to find a tree assuming you would know everything about  it as well as you will a man?

"Um...yes"

"Not to sound condescending, but where do you think oak trees come from?"

     The maiden was a bit perplexed.  The answer seemed so incredibly simple, that he must be asking for something far more complicated than the only answer she could think of at the time. She decided that at least the answer she had was correct, so if he wanted to push for specifics she would work from there.

"Oak trees come from an acorn."

"When you first came into the forest, were you given a seed to plant?

"No, we were just instructed to find the tree."

"So how did you presume that it was an Oak tree you needed if you didn't know in the first place or think to ask that sapling if it came from an acorn."


"I am sorry, I don't understand what you are getting at" the maiden replied.


"While you sat there waiting for your oak tree to drop acorns to you, you neglected to know what qualities that type of tree had. type of tree you were expected by others to have in the first place , and demanded by the tree, to nurture in order to find out, but not a single soul told you what an oak looks like or that it comes from acorns.
 place.


"Were you ever told how long to wait?

"Well, no."

"So how long do you suppose it will take an oak tree to produce acorns?"

     The maiden thought for a moment.  She had already spent the better part of ten years here and had not seen a single acorn, but she honestly had no idea how long an oak tree took to produce acorns. No one ever even mentioned it.  The thought occurred to her suddenly, however, that she had never considered that it may take more years to produce acorns from an oak than there are years in a human lifetime.  Would this tree have made her hope until the day she died? The revelation scared her witless, but not half as much as what the great tree said next. 

"Dearest Maiden", he replied quietly, I will tell you that, as a tree myself, I know exactly how long it will take that particular tree you see before you to to produce acorns, but you may want to sit down before I tell you."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because that is not an oak tree you have been tending year after year with every ounce of your being consumed and eroded by either the effort of doing it or the fear of being seen as a failure by others  if you didn't. That tree is not an oak at ALL. THAT is a Hemlock."

     The maidens jaw dropped, and had it not been for her cheeks would have lost her bottom teeth in the large pile of leaves at the base of the shade tree.
  
  "A WHAT!?!?!" But it never told me  it was a Hemlock tree at all."

"No it didn't. And why should it? But you didn't ask it that either, did you? You asked if it could make acorns, and it gave you the only answer it could honestly afford to your very pointed and direct question that would keep you right where it wanted you to be, doing what it expected of you, either way. Do you recall what it was you asked of it?"

    She mumbled quietly under her breath so quietly the tree couldn't hear her but she was just as shocked to hear her mutter it herself.

"What was that?" The tree asked. "I didn't quit hear you"

"I said, it told me  to 'wait and see'."

"Knowing what to ask for in a question is just as important as what you are told as an answer." The tree paused for just a moment to let this sink in.

"Have you waited?"

"Yes. Much longer than I believe I should have"

"Why would a woman of such obvious potential continue at something long beyond what she even thought was prudent, herself?"

"Because I was afraid that if I didn't, that I would have stopped trying on the day just before I would have proven to the tree I was worthy of what it was I did to have it. "
     The tree offered her the other possibility she had silently asked herself every single day but refused to answer.
"And how many days can pass before you realize you will never be given anything for what you have already done? Who else will ever know the price of the days that were counted by only you? It is not swaddled babes in bassinets that contemplate the days of their lives. It is only those old and broken on their death beds who look backward that can truly understand the enormity of regret."



"Do you see any acorns at all?"

"No."

"Then your job here, and the answer to your question is finished. You have accomplished what was asked and you have found the answer.There are no acorns now because there will never be acorns from hemlocks"

     She stared at the Hemlock tree in absolute disbelief. As though her entire life had been summed up in a single sentence that took merely ten seconds to say, could possibly have been enough to account for the lifetime it would have taken had it never been uttered at all.

"Can I ask you why you wanted an Oak in particular?"

"Because Oak trees are supposed to be the largest of the forest and I thought I deserved the biggest and the best for what I was willing to do."

A fair statement for the most part"

"What do you mean, 'for the most part'?"

It is true the Oaks are the biggest trees in this forest, but there are larger trees in larger forests, and as for the best, what exactly makes it the best?"

"It's the biggest. It has to be the best."

"A blizzard is the biggest snow of the Winter. How do they make you feel?

"Cold...and alone"

"And yet it gives nothing different than the smallest of flurries. A mountain is no different than a  stone, and yet for all of its size, builds not a single house, nor bridge, nor even the ring for a fire.

"So what do I do now?" 

"Go and find a tree that does what you expect of it and shows you what you need to know of a men. Unless, of course, you have found enough already."

"But I can't just go out and spend another ten years tending to another tree. What if I do and I waste another ten years?"

     The shade tree wholly understood the enormity of this question, especially from a human whose life is so much less than that of a tree, but his answer, he hoped, would be enough to convince the maiden that the alternative to doing anything but that was tantamount to suicide.

     Like men, It does not take nearly as long for a true tree to produce knowledge as fruit as it does for a false tree to produce nothing at all by wasting a lifetime. "

     The maiden was absolutely beside herself in a blind panic as to how to account for all the effort and time she had invested in this tree. And rightfully so, as time is a much more precious commodity to humans. To trees, even worthless non productive ones, folly that accounts for decades would be the same as a single day of mistakes to a human.  Time, and more importantly, time wasted, is simply not an issue to things that have no reason to count it in the first place as a scarcity.

"Well, what if I just take what a Hemlock tree gives so that I won't have wasted my time? What does a Hemlock tree give if I can't have acorns?

"Are we going to be making  solutions or excuses?"

"Okay, your right" The maiden replied. "I'm asking for help and you're giving it and I am fighting you with the answers."


"I am not in the habit of defining the particulars of other trees, but I have watched you labor greatly for many years, and will tell you what I know of that particular type of tree because you have at least earned the right to know if it will not tell you itself."

     For once, the small tree finally spoke, but only for its own viewpoint, that it had done nothing different than what it always had and that it was not the fault of himself if the maiden didn't have the  fortitude or endurance to deserve such a tree as himself. She was far too weak and incapable of what he was and  had obviously set her sights too high for her meager abilities.  The maiden bowed her head in shame and paid no heed nor recognized what it was that she had accomplished. All she knew was that what she wished for, thought of her as unworthy in its eyes.

     The small glade grew very quiet as the shade tree looked down at the maiden. Her white dress was dark and soiled with dirt. her fingernails broken from tending the soil around the roots he swore were the foundation of not only himself but of her as well. Her hands were blistered in some spots, and calloused in others.  Her back ached from her labors, but still she had the ability to stand much taller than the tiny tree.  A rage built deep inside the trunk of the great shade tree.  His patience was gone and he would no longer stand with the patience of a tree and watch this woman be destroyed by him or destroy herself.

     The  shade tree had only just began listening to it and had already heard enough of this irritating little sapling.  He scowled down at the small tree and, for the first time, spoke in a completely diferent way. This voice was angry and contemptuous and with no pity or empathy like what he offered her.He spoke not directly to the maiden as he usually did, but to the other tree, as though she were merely a bystander to a much larger confrontation but still privy to the information. It was as though the shade tree were reading charges at a trial to the smaller shrub and who had,up to this point, relied solely on his silence and indifference  as its only defense and was, now, being implicated with evidence to the contrary that would condemn it.

     "A Hemlock..." he spat the word out as though beetles had infested a knothole inside of him, ".. is a poisonous perennial. That means it keeps coming back year after year. It will only grow as tall as you. Ever. It will  never shade you more in the future as you see from it right now.
     It will have many different names in the future, when man reaches the far edges of the earth. Those to the New World will aptly name it 'Poison Hemlock'. The Celts and the Gauls will call it "Devil's Porridge', and still others will call it 'Beaver Poison'.
     It flourishes early in the Spring before anything else and is often mistaken for food by its ability to be the only plant to present itself. It is poisonous, however. Remind me to tell you of Socrates sometime. A man named Shakespeare will refer to it in a play and put the product of Hemlock in the company of thistles and burrs. All of which lose their beauty and utility. It is even believed a martyred man who will die for the sins of the world will be given Hemlock to aid in his suffering, but only by speeding his death."

     The large tree suddenly shifted itself and returned the gentle tone and smile it always had for her before it asked his next question.
     "Just out of curiosity, fair maiden, has any other animal of the forest come to tell you of the ways of this Hemlock?"
     The maiden paused for a moment and recalled surprisingly, that she had never been approached by anything else in the forest at all save the small hemlock and the shade tree.

" No. As a matter of fact, they haven't. Nothing else has come near me at all except you, but you were always here."

 "That's no great surprise to me at all.  That's because a Hemlock  has the ability of causing muscular paralysis that makes it impossible to move or breathe. Any animal that attempts to eat from it will almost assuredly die, but only after it as walked back off into the forest to die alone.Those that do not,and there are few exceptions, will never come anywhere near it again. Like many poisonous things, the most toxicity is found in the small seeds and the outer bark.  It grows on the  edges of cultivated land and in stagnant pools of fetid water. It flourishes just as well when it is ignored as tended, ad provides no more or no less of itself in either case. It is simply whatever it wishes of itself. And, not to sound as though I didn't address every aspect of this 'tree' to you, it is hollow on the inside and has a smell that has been compared to parsnips or mice.

"Well that doesn't sound very agreeable at all! Why didn't anyone tell me that this is what a Hemlock was? That's just not fair!" And why didn't it tell me that it was all of those things?

     "No. No it isn't fair at all. Those who could have told you didn't know at all. Those who did know were driven away by its very nature. But how would anyone else have known what to warn you of if you were so sure of what it was you were seeking anyway? And once you found it to be a far less agreeable than you expected, what was done by you to tell anyone else that what you found was not what you hoped?"

"I'm not quite sure I understand the question."

The large shade tree waved in the wind for just a moment before starting again.

"Who, other than me, knows  that what you have here is not now, nor ever will be, an Oak tree?

"Nobody knows. They can't. I simply can't tell anyone who could help me with  what it is I have found. They would be appalled"

"And why not?"

"Because if they knew that I tended for this then I would have to admit that I was misled and that I was wrong about what it actually was. If I just keep telling everyone that it is an Oak tree, or tell them nothing at all, then I won't have to do anything except what I am doing now.."

Who exactly will that benefit?"

What?"

"Who does that idea serve the most?"

"Me, obviously."

No it doesn't. It serves that Hemlock tree. Which is exactly why it has sat there silently as a Hemlock while you tend to it as an Oak. Because it is your labor that makes it  a respectable productive Oak that produces nothing  with all of the accolades a tree of that station deserves when what it really is is a very overly productive Hemlock. It is not what it is. It is what you made it because of what it could not be on its own. That idea serves him, not you."


     The maiden seemed to stare at the little tree with a duplicitous expression of both frustration and pity for the Hemlock tree combined with anger at being misled  that accomplished both without it ever saying a thing.


"I am going to ask you a question,fair maiden. Do you remember what your purpose was to come to this glade in the first place?"

     The maiden stared in disbelief at the enormity of the question as much as the shock and surprise that she had, indeed, completely forgotten what it was she was to be doing here in the first place.

"I was to come here to learn the secrets of the trees...and then...take that knowledge back with me to find....

     The great shade tree finished the sentence for her.

"...A man".

     The lives of trees are so much longer than humans, little maiden. We have the benefit of eons to contemplate our lives. Humans are so much less in the span of their lives but burn greater with all they can do beyond the limits of roots. You have learned all that you need from this forest and from these trees. Take what you know and make a life for yourself. Do not spend that short and precious life attempting to make worthy what you already know to be false. Instead, take what you have learned and go find a man.

"But how am I to find a man if I spent all of my time with one I don't want to be with?  What do I know if I didn't learn it from that?"She pointed at the Hemlock tree.

     "The shade tree replied quietly "You may not know what you want, but you know what you do NOT want. Perhaps that is a far better gift.  We trees, and the women who rely on us to tell the truths of man, have unfairly given you the right to the knowledge of men, but we have done so by having you believe you must work, in one way or another, to get the benefit of those you care for. In many cases, that is fair and brings women happiness. But in other cases, it teaches women that in order to be happy they must still conform to the wishes of the trees, and to men as a result.  Perhaps it is time for us to send a new message to women.

"What do you mean?"

     The great tree suddenly groaned and the entire length of its trunk shuddered as jerked free from the ground. Large roots snapped out of the earth on one side and the shock sent bright  leaves tumbling from it's branches. The sound was like a great ship splintering on rocks.

The maiden stared in disbelief and then realizing what was happening, screamed.

"What are you doing? Why are you doing this?" The tree stopped for a moment and began to speak again, but more slowly and in obvious pain.

"It is not the responsibility of women to learn the secrets of men in order to make them satisfied or  happy. The fact that generations of maidens have come to this forest to learn the ways of man has shown me that it is within all women to do this simply by their nature. A woman will provide for any tree she feels is what she deserves.  It is, however, the job of the trees, and of men, to do more for the maidens who love them, then to simply see how well they will work. The time has come for women to not only find these secrets on their own, but to expect that the men will no longer be tolerated if they should not live up to the expectations of the maidens who love them. There is simply not enough time for a human to learn AND to love. She must do both at the same time. Men do not have the right to exact the time from women to learn their ways if they can not repay the women with the time it takes to do so. Theft of time is theft of lives"

     The great tree shuddered again and the other side of the trees roots tore from the ground. Huge twisting legs covered in soil and dangling with moss left gaping holes in the earth.

     "The time has come for the trees, all the trees, to do what must be done and to show one last maiden that it means more for them to show her what she is worth, than for her to show the trees how long she can do it without benefiting from it.

     The maiden still did not understand what was going to happen next, but realized that today she would be leaving this forest and go away from this giant tree that had cared for her for so long. She had learned a great deal from this quiet sentinel and never even realized how much it had been there for her while she spent year after year here in the glade. Suddenly she knew exactly what she needed to ask it before she could do anything else.

   "I understand now what it is you have tried to tell me for so long" she said to the tree. " I know exactly what it is that I need from a man. I do not need anything else or any  different than what I wished for in the beginning. I simply need to have that man produce for me what it is that he does, but watch how it is that he gives it to me and why. It isn't what he will gain from me but what he is willing to offer of himself. And it isn't what he can take from me but what I am willing to give. If those things are true, then there is no need to know the secrets of man. Of true and honest men and women, there are no real secrets."

"I don't think I have ever asked this, but...what kind of tree are you?"

    "You wanted to know that there was something inside of a tree that would make it all worth it. You wanted to be able to be  provided for with something you could see and touch and feel and taste, and even to smell. Inside of me is the sweetest golden sap, but it does not come without a bit of pain. Pain that is worth it for you to have it, though. You wanted to be kept cool in the summer  and needed everyone to see how well you could grow a tree of your own. I am that tree of your own.  When I needed water I got it myself, but what came from that water was given to you in the way of leaves and shade.  I made myself grow. When I didn't need water, I grew moss around me and gave you a place to sleep. My branches became unruly at times, but always there was fuel for a fire to keep you warm.Most of all you needed to know that something that came from inside  of me would benefit you and be worth as much as  as I put into it. And for that, I have been with you every single day."

    The air was completely still in the glade as the tree looked down at the beautiful maiden he had loved all these years. He was proud of her and all that she had done. Not because he had anything of them at all  but because he knew that what he needed to know of her she showed him regardless. All he needed was to be near her when she needed him to be.  She was everything he expected her to be and would do anything for her.

     The tree gave an almost imperceptible shiver as he finally answered her question.

     " I am going to show you what makes me a tree different from a Hemlock or any other tree in the forest. It is true that there are many other trees that  believe they can offer what a maiden such as yourself is worth, and many more who believe maidens can be made to believe they are worth less to be had by them.  I have never said that I was the best and I never said I could give you what you wanted. I can only give what I have. There are many trees that are prettier, and those that live longer.  There are trees that give far better fruit off their limbs, but only one that gives from the inside. The trees that give from the inside have something else even the mighty oaks do not possess. I have weight. Go and find your man, fair maiden, but before you do, I will show you what I am and hope that what do will show you what you need to know. Do not wait for secrets to be told by those who will not speak. See the worth of men by what a tree would  do, and decide for yourself.

"I am a Maple"

     And with that, the tree very gently shifted against the breeze. Its uppermost branch waving like a pennant as the trunk heeled over spreading the entire width of the tree open like a fan . The massive branches underneath swinging upward and out seemed to scratch the blue off the sky. A massive crack broke through the air and the birds on every side shot into the sky as the great tree toppled from its base and crashed to the earth on top of the Hemlock.
     The maiden was knocked off her feet by the impact of the tree striking the ground and the now invisible hemlock.  She stood carefully on shaky legs to get back on her feet but doubted she had the strength to do so after what she had seen the tree do. 
  The trees eyes were still open, as it takes a very long time for a tree to die even after it falls.  It noticed the sky for the first time in a way it had never been able to before. The sky always had a horizon to it. This was bright blue everywhere.
     "Why did you do that?" the maiden said quietly as tears began to pour down her face. "I would have stayed here and tended to you instead if only I had known. If only I had been told."

     The tree could not see her, but as always, knew where she was and that she could hear him.

"I did it for three reasons. One is that I knew  would the hemlock would never give you so much as a single acorn. The second is because I know you were the type of maiden who would never stop trying to make acorns appear where there would be none,  and the third was because I knew that after knowing those two truths, that you would be the type of maiden to stay with me."

    "But wouldn't you love to have me take care of you the way you take care of me?
"Of course I would, but that is not what you are here for and that is not why I am on the ground now. You were here to learn and become what you are from a tree for a man, and what a tree can show you what you should expect from a man when he loves a woman.


this has to do with you on the ground dying though.

"If I was not here and had not told you of the hemlock, where would you be tommorow?
      The maiden answered as plainly and honestly as the question sounded.

"I'd be here"


 " When you knew you were unhappy and had worked longer than you should have, where did you think anyone who would care enough about you would find you?"

     "Again, I'd be here."    
    
"And lastly, if he had admitted to you that he was a hemlock and left this glade and that I was more worthy of your labor and work, where would you be?

"And again, I would have been here.
"Then I did the one thing I had left. He would not stop taking. You would not stop giving. And I could not stop forgetting that you are not to be wasting your time with trees at all. You are supposed to be living your life with all you desire for all you can give. Not tending to trees. Not because one can take from you, and not because you would give to another."

  The maiden left the glade shortly after the giant Maple had fallen to the ground.  Beneath it, only one small  lacy leaf of the Hemlock remained. The rest had been completely obliterated by the mighty trunk of the Maple tree