I sit under the tree and think. I call it my tree even though I know I could not be the only person ever to sit there. It has been there for longer than anyone can remember. My tree.

I sit, protected in between the giant roots of my tree, my home. I like to believe that nothing but animals and insects have ever touched it. Here, I can be alone and I can be myself.

Looking up through the branches I believe that I can see the past and the future. They collide, overlap, and intersect in the chaos of patterns above my head.

One branch leads out across the forest and the ocean and shows me another world. The people living and breathing different customs than my own, different flavors than my own.

My tree is no different from one day to the next. It whispers the secrets of the world to me as it holds me close. These secrets become my own and my tree is allowed to forget them, at least for a little while.

Sometimes, if I sit very still, a butterfly might pass me by, or land upon me. Sometimes, if I sit very still, I might fall asleep and not wake until night. Then I must run home but mother will know where I have been. She scolds me and tells me I am a sleeping beauty.

If I am a sleeping beauty, I sometimes ask my tree, then where is my prince? It tells me to hush and I do, breathing in peace and nature.

Instead of a prince I was found by a poor woodcutter's son, walking one day in search of his princess, or on some magic quest. He thought he had stumbled onto a dryad or perhaps some other forest nymph.

He was not disappointed when he found that I was not, though he scolded me for looking like a nymph, curled up and at home between the roots. Somehow he stumbled back to my tree several times.

I asked it why it kept bringing him back, but all it said was that I should hush. I breathed in the peace and nature and watched past and future collide to form the present and it offered me a chance. I could choose one branch, one future, that stemmed from the present.

So I sit, staring up into the face of my futures. Watching the patterns around it and those that overlap, and breathing in the peace and nature of this place before I make my decision.

I sit under the tree and breathe in. I can smell the peace in this place. It mingles with the smells of nature, but it is there, peace. I wrap myself in its roots and become a part of it.

I sit under the tree and think. I call it my tree even though I know I could not be the only person ever to sit there. It has been there for longer than anyone can remember. My tree.

I sit, protected in between the giant roots of my tree, my home. I like to believe that nothing but animals and insects have ever touched it. Here, I can be alone and I can be myself.

Looking up through the branches I believe that I can see the past and the future. They collide, overlap, and intersect in the chaos of patterns above my head.

One branch leads out across the forest and the ocean and shows me another world. The people living and breathing different customs than my own, different flavors than my own.

My tree is no different from one day to the next. It whispers the secrets of the world to me as it holds me close. These secrets become my own and my tree is allowed to forget them, at least for a little while.

Sometimes, if I sit very still, a butterfly might pass me by, or land upon me. Sometimes, if I sit very still, I might fall asleep and not wake until night. Then I must run home but mother will know where I have been. She scolds me and tells me I am a sleeping beauty.

If I am a sleeping beauty, I sometimes ask my tree, then where is my prince? It tells me to hush and I do, breathing in peace and nature.

Instead of a prince I was found by a poor woodcutter's son, walking one day in search of his princess, or on some magic quest. He thought he had stumbled onto a dryad or perhaps some other forest nymph.

He was not disappointed when he found that I was not, though he scolded me for looking like a nymph, curled up and at home between the roots. Somehow he stumbled back to my tree several times.

I asked it why it kept bringing him back, but all it said was that I should hush. I breathed in the peace and nature and watched past and future collide to form the present and it offered me a chance. I could choose one branch, one future, that stemmed from the present.

So I sit, staring up into the face of my futures. Watching the patterns around it and those that overlap, and breathing in the peace and nature of this place before I make my decision.