It’s #FiveMinuteFriday free write time! <—click to tweet this! 
Where a flash mob of folks spend five minutes all writing on the same topic and then share ‘em at LisaJoBaker.com.
Words from my five minutes on....ROOTS
I have had a fascination with tree roots since I walked to school in first grade along Hawthorne Avenue happily on my own without friends or siblings or Mom. I have always loved to think about how trees have an entire life, unseen, underground until some of them go a little bit wild and make their underground worlds known.
There is a tree in downtown Bakersfield’s residential district: a big Oak tree – and it has an incredibly vivid underground life. It pokes up through the earth and makes the sidewalk resemble a roller coaster. It was last June, I believe, when a baby palm tree growing between its root and the gutter that I noticed it.
Quite a few trees do this: show us their wildness amidst residential areas. They say “You silly humans, you can not contain our underground spaces.”
I was blessed when I was in college to live directly across from the rehearsal halls for the Conservatory of Music. It felt so collegiate to hear the nearly constant blowing on horns, pounding on piano keys and strings being perfectly massaged. The only thing between my third floor window and the practice rooms was a row of stately Eucalyptus trees.
I didn’t know these trees in New Jersey when I was younger, but since becoming a Californian, I knew their playfulness underground wreaked havoc with above ground structures like streets, sidewalks, anything that got in its way: perhaps pipes and the like, too, I don’t know. I was so sad when I returned to University of the Pacific years later and saw they had removed these fragrant, stately and more than a bit mischievous trees.
My favorite roots, though, belong to the largest living organisms on the planet that call home a space a couple hours from my home: the giant Sequoia. They are rare trees with one of the primary reasons being this: they are required to live in groves because their root systems are not very deep. They need other Sequoia trees in order to survive. They need other Sequoias who are willing to work with them to grow tall and stately and each one works with the other in order to do it.
(Note: the photo below in my signature is me writing on a Sequoia root. Yes, the root is as high as my chest.)
Sequoias are one of God’s great metaphors to the humans who walk so far below their heights: cooperate and grow healthy. Live closely and help one another, love one another with your roots becoming interdependent. Be a community.
Roots.
TIMER sings! I’m done with my Friday Five!
The guidelines for Five Minute Friday -
1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. And
then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the
person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments.
Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this
community..
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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS & this Summer will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
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