Look, mom, it followed me home!

Have you ever spent long moments along the banks of a river or stream lined with big old trees?
There is something strangely hypnotic and calming about the way the water swirls around, over, through the exposed roots. Especially the roots of deciduous trees: convoluted tangles snaking over and around each other.
Or, ever had the opportunity to feel the trunk of a long-dead tree for years exposed to the abrasive, smoothing effects of wind-whipped sand and rushing water? All silvery, soft almost like a fabric, but still hard, solid, wood- a happy recliner for a young girl looking for a place to read a book on the shores of Chatfield Resevoir. When we moved from Colorado to Indiana, some of my favorite trees were low, horizontal trunks that offered free bench seating over the river for dangling my feet in the water on hot sticky days.
Then there's the tree in Oxbow Park that i call "Le Roi Argent", The Silver King. A massive, towering sycamore tree, easily the biggest in the park, with bark peeling to reveal silvery white arms reaching into the blue skies. The King has a trunk with girth so great, even 2 adults cannot reach all the way around to touch each other's hands... Rare was the time when i would visit Oxbow without making the walk to pay homage to Le Roi du Foret. (yes, i know my French isn't very good anymore...)
So, yes, to this day i talk to trees. they make great conversation companions, and are really very helpful when one is facing a decision, or is upset, or muddling something out. i can't begin to count the number of times i have stopped and asked one of those stolid sentinels, "what stories could you tell?" My mind has wandered through history imagining the varied lives the great, old m/patriachs have lived- with their feet anchoring them in the soil and their branches reaching up toward the face of God.
Oh, for even one of them to have given a reply to my question. Roots and branches and leaves infused with the power of animation, thought, and speech.
My mom read Chronicles of Narnia and The Hobbit to me and my sister when we were quite young. i don't really remember not knowing the stories. Both of those authors really convey a sense of the entire world around you being alive and vibrant- a gift to our senses. And both were just a bit fanciful, in a fantasy way. And Tolkien must have appreciated trees as much as i, for he created trees that do exactly as i long for them to do.
"Look mom! The Ent followed me home! Can i keep it? "