I used to...... [I Ramble]

@Allelse me too!

@Invocations Haha! I sway with them and laugh and smile and it's like they're talking back. I miss sitting beside the water and talking to the willow trees, but there aren't any willow trees where I live.

@Allelse willow trees are beautiful! When I was a kid I used to look at the pine trees in the dark and imagine they were big sentries protecting us.

@Invocations That sounds beautiful!! My grandparents had pine trees in their backyard, and when we'd go over there for dinner I loved watching out the window from the dinner table as the night grew darker and darker!!! And the trees seemed to grow in size and mystery!

@Allelse they are beautiful and they’re still here! And that’s exactly how I felt about the trees and still do. Exactly

@Invocations I trace a lot of my memories growing up to the trees I remember, like the Jacaranda trees which grew around my Nana's house, and the place we visited when we go on holidays with the willow trees by the river. And gum trees covered in noisy cicadas each year by the house I grew up in.

@Allelse Pretoria?

@Invocations Haha! Close sounding in name, but no we used to visit a little town in the Australian state of Victoria called Bright, and there's this river there that has willow trees growing all along it.

@Allelse ha that’s funny. I grew up near a river too and loved climbing Willows next to it. That’s very cool I’m glad to learn there is someone else who feels trees are special like I do.

@Invocations I had a very terrible father and when he was a boy he tried climbing a willow tree and the branch broke, and he fell and broke his arm. So I've always been fond of willow trees, knowing that one tried to kill him once. :D

@Allelse Good on the Willow. My father built me a tree house. I wanted a rope swing off it so bad.

@Invocations Haha! Yep, I always thought so. Awwwwwwwwwwwww! That's beautiful. I had to make do as a kid by climbing around very dangerous sandstone cliffs with my friend.

@Allelse lucky you - we had no cliffs here- stuck to the roofs of buildings.

@Invocations Yeah I lived right near the bush and rarely wore shoes as a kid, so I was always coming home covered in scratches and grazes. I learned very early on how to apply my own bandaids and betadine.

@Allelse I lived in a small farm so no shoes either. Those were such simple days weren’t they?

@Invocations Well, I grow up around some kids who had helicopter parents, like my friend next door couldn't leave the house without her goddamn shoes and socks on. While I'd be out running around barefoot and with no shirt on. So I was raised kind of wild while I also grew up around kids who went youth group and scouts and all that. I never did scouts because I hated the idea of being told what to do in the wilderness, that was my place to go wild and do what I want.

@Allelse sounds wonderful.