Ok, I get it: Visit the tree.

         When something keeps popping into my mind for no apparent reason, eventually I’m forced to give in and pay attention.  This has been happening with the Angel Oak recently.  Situated on John’s Island, about a 20-minute ride from my house, sits one of the oldest things- living or man-made - east of the Rockies.  It is a live oak that some estimate to be about 1,500 years old.  The circumference of its trunk is over 25 feet and its widespread branches shade over 1,700 square feet.

            Though I’ve lived in Charleston for a combined 10 years, it took me almost 9 to make it out to the Angel Oak for the first time.  Afterwards, I probably visited it 10 or twelve times in a six month period.  Then I didn’t return for a year.  But over the weekend, something in the back of my mind kept telling me to go.  And while biking with a friend yesterday morning, the tree came up again.

            So today after dropping the kids off at school, I headed straight for the tree.  There wasn’t a soul in sight as I pulled up to the gate.  (The perimeter is fenced off for the tree’s protection and it doesn’t open until 9).  Instead of getting frustrated that I had to wait half an hour, or sitting in my car Facebooking, I grabbed my bike off the rack and set out on the long dirt road that extends in either direction from the tree. 

Usually, I would throw in my earbuds and get lost in the music, but the sound of birds chirping, bugs buzzing, and a strong breeze rustling the leaves, was simply too enticing to drown out on a perfect Lowcountry morning like today.  A half hour later, shoes full of sand and a thick layer of dust from my knees to my ankles, I made my way back to the tree and found a sunny spot to lay down.

Nothing utterly magical happened.  There were no signs.  Not a singular life-changing event.  But there were definitely a few moments of clarity and insight.  I think what I like most about being under that tree is that it reminds me how tiny I am.  Not physically, though I do feel miniscule beneath its branches.  But that worrying about things is fairly inconsequential.  I really believe everything happens for a reason.  And if my brain kept nudging me to go there, then there was probably a greater reason for it.  After all, a connection between me and trees just keeps cropping up.  But that’s for another blog…