Totally!
RE: Relocating (EDIT: Transplanting Is What It’s Called) Year-Old Sapling
Posted by Toothless
JULY 29th, 2017 | 9:07AM
Also make sure you fill the hole where you removed the tree, so no one falls in it. ˉ\_(:/)_/ˉ
RE: Relocating (Shut Up I Don’t Care) Year-Old Sapling
Posted by WithouttheY
JULY 29th, 2017 | 10:02AM
OMG TOOTH GTFO YOU ARE THE ACTUAL WORST.
II
Leila held the medium-sized terracotta pot tightly and stared at the little tree. The baby willow was practically bursting out of it, small branches consumed by thick, green leaves. It looked nothing like the old willow, with its great branches and low, drooping foliage. It looked more like a brown stick with a giant, dirty, green cotton ball on top. Like green cotton candy, or maybe a Muppet.
Still, she loved it, odd as it looked.
Though it did give her pause.
It had only been, what, two weeks since the storm had torn through her family’s yard? And here was the lone survivor of the yard, a small branch plucked from the downed willow, already growing a fairly strong, thin trunk and blooming with wispy leaves.
And whenever she was close to it, she swore—though she knew it was outrageous—she could hear the little tree growing. Little rustles and snaps, like it was stretching, reaching towards the sky right in front of her.
The rapid growth made no sense, but Jon and Liz both just shrugged about it. Leila left out the part where she thought she could hear it growing. “You’ve got a natural way with plants,” Jon said, though his amazed eyes betrayed him.
Leila placed the potted tree on the floor, the ceramic hitting the wood with a light plink, and searched around in the pantry for her gardening tools. Eventually her eyes settled on a new-looking plastic bin labeled Leila’s Toys with a little smiley face. She opened the plastic lid and caught a glimpse of small shovels and other gardening tools.
“Toys? Jon, come on,” she said, rolling her eyes as she picked up the box.
“I’ll be right back,” she said to the willow tree, and made her way to the backyard. The house was narrow, and she had to weave in and out of the thin hallways to get to the back of the home. But it was cozy in that way. The old group home had been so big, all sprawled out, so many rooms everywhere. It was easy to avoid people. But here, it was kind of hard not to see her new parents at all times. She couldn’t turn a corner without bumping into one of them, or sit in her room without hearing them talk.
It was strangely comforting. Nice, even.
She opened the door to the yard, a heavy weight in her chest at the sight of the place where the willow once stood. It’d been two weeks, sure, but the loss of the tree still scarred her, the same way it scarred the earth where it had stood. Heaps of dirt and piles of mulch covered the spot where Jon and Liz had the remaining tree uprooted, after one of the Urban Ecovist board members determined the tree wasn’t going to make it.
But she had this little one now. A sapling of hope.
Jon stressed she’d need to keep it trimmed and maintained. She could see it now, the entire yard becoming just her willow tree, the branches and thick, leafy strands taking over everything, which didn’t seem like such a bad thing. But she understood the damage a large tree could do to these old Philadelphia homes. Especially a young one, with new roots digging into untouched places.
Earlier in the spring she’d attended a protest with Sarika near Fairmount Park, where trees hundreds of years old grew tall and strong, an almost-forest tucked away in the center of a giant metropolis. One of the oldest trees in the city was set to be cut down because the roots had taken hold of some water pipes. They’d made it a full two days at the protest, their parents coming by and dropping off snacks and blankets later in the evening with their gentle suggestions to come home. People who didn’t have to go to school or work hung around for the remaining week and, thankfully, saved the ancient tree.
Leila chuckled, the memory sweet, but her laugh cut short when she picked up the sound of something on the wind. She listened, intently, and slowly placed the box down on the soft ground.
Whispering.
A laugh.
Th . . . wood . . . whe . . . hou . . .
She closed her eyes, gritting her teeth.
Sa . . . on . . . you . . .
“No, no, no,” she muttered, placing her hands over her ears, the unintelligible whispering growing louder but still vague. “Not now, not right now.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, visualizing the yard around her.
“Grass. Sky. Sun. Wind,” she whispered, breathing slowly, and the voices faded.
She patted her pockets for her phone, and, finding nothing, went back inside, closing the back door behind her. She wanted to shut the voices out. Since the storm, the voices had taken on a new tone, with the hint of something strange that Leila couldn’t quite figure out. Urgency, maybe? She hurried back into the living room, dipping in and out of the narrow hallways of the century-old rowhome, and dug around in her tattered messenger bag for her cell phone. Jon and Liz were out, collecting supplies for the yard and paint to touch up the house. She turned the phone’s screen on, her hands shaking, and despite how her heart was racing in her chest, smiled to see a bunch of notifications waiting for her. Some alerts on the message board, the usual social media silliness, and most notably, a bunch of texts from Sarika.
What are you doing?
Why aren’t you with me drinking coffee right now?!
GIRL WHERE ARE YOU?
Leila smiled. Sarika was precisely the person she had planned to reach out to. Not that there was anyone else she’d talk to about it. With trembling hands, Leila responded:
Having a moment. Can you come over? Like now?
Please. Dropping everything.
Leila’s finger hovered over the “depression” hashtag on Tumblr for a few second before she clicked it. A warning immediately appeared, filling her tablet’s screen with a dark-blue background and bright-white text.
Everything Okay?
If you or someone you know are experiencing some kind of crisis, there are people who care about you and are here to help. Consider chatting with a volunteer trained in crisis intervention or an anonymous listener at the following link.
It might also help to fill your blog with inspirational and supportive posts from—
She clicked “continue” to view the search results, pushing by the warning and the large “Go Back” button. She appreciated the friendly nudge, one that she’d given to other people in her group home countless times. She could be a person who listened, or refer them to someone else who could. As for Leila, she kept her secret with Sarika, the voices and the whispers and the soft laughter that edged its way into the corners of her mind. But here, on the Internet, she could look for others dealing with the same thing she was, see what they wrote, and sometimes, feel a little less alone.
A soft knock on the door shook Leila out of her mindless, hashtag-browsing trance. Nearly half an hour had gone by without her noticing. She leapt off the couch, and had barely turned the knob on the front door when it burst open and Sarika stormed in, a ball of concerned, worried energy.
“Leila!” Sarika exclaimed, running into her, giving her an enormous hug. “What’s going on? How bad is it?” Sarika let go and stepped away from Leila, her big, brown eyes full and focused on her.
Leila smiled. There was a time when Sarika had been quiet and sheltered, arriving in the group home when she and Leila were a year short of being teenagers. Her hair had been matted, and those wide eyes of hers dark and sunken. She had looked as though she hadn’t eaten in weeks, and shied away from everyone like a scared mouse until Leila had shared those books.
She grabbed Leila’s hand.