Metaphor of woman experiencing depression fallout reclaiming her life in a transformational way. Originally written 2013
As a sapling, Hama used to look up to Great Oak and stretch her limbs as high as they’d go, aspiring to become as substantial as her counterpart. She listened to his stories and watched him juggle children in his arms. But she struggled to photosynthesize as he morphed into an ogre and blocked the sunshine and its warmth.
She listened as he complained about his woes. He grumbled about the incessant chatter of birds, he fretted over the carelessness of the boys who played in his branches, and he lamented his loss of acorns from the squirrels. He grieved over his age in comparison to Hama, and demonstrated his wretchedness with every creek of his branches or sigh in his leaves. His once stalwart frame sagged, and Hama tried to redirect all birds, children, and squirrels into her own branches to alleviate his pain.
But over the years, the burden became too much, and Great Oak’s cantankerousness became contagious. Hama’s branches began to droop. She was young, but her bark was brittle and faded, and she shed her leaves prematurely. While Great Oak’s acorns would drop in their own time, Hama didn’t seem to be able to keep up production to meet the demands of the squirrels. Children climbed all over Hama’s branches as if they were a mother’s arms carrying babies on either hip. She held up her limbs with great care not to let them fall, beaming at the sound of their laughter and the sight of their smiles. But when they went home, her frame would sag and her canopy looked unkempt with broken twigs and ripped leaves. Great Oak may have been a little uphill from her, but he seemed to be right on top of her, like another heavy burden to bear.
It was a sunny day, but Hama shivered from a chronic chill, shrouded by the company of her other half, and clothed with too few leaves and too thin bark. To her dismay, it was going to grow colder as she heard thunder rumble in the distance.
Hama felt sporadic water droplets fall on her leaves like tears of her own. But the raindrops sizzled on her parched leaves like hydrogen peroxide on an open wound. She looked down at her leaves, overturning each one that was stamped with water, and marveled at how smooth and soft they were after being bathed in such soothing balm. The rain fell faster, and she breathed in the scent of actinomycete in the wet earth below like an antibiotic refreshment. Her leaves whipped in the wind like a woman’s head of hair, wild and free. As the rain washed Great Oak from her consciousness, she stood two feet taller as an independent tree.
Streaks of lightning cut through the sky, splitting the world into pieces like it was ushering in the apocalypse. It quickened the sap in her limbs. A sudden bolt struck the ground at her base, jolting her trunk and stunning her leaves with electricity. Infused with new energy, she pulled up her roots with a popping noise that echoed the thunder. The wet earth exploded around her with each upheaval, mixing with the rain drops in a dirty storm.
Through sheets of rain, she clomped down the hillside to the stream, the roots on her now divided trunk trailing behind like broken chains. The water removed the clinging fibers and cleansed her feet of mud, revealing ankles and toes. The little stream had grown into a rushing river, but its force was no match for an oak like Hama, and she pushed her way deeper into the water. Exfoliating bark from her physique, her frame took on a feminine form. Her course leaves had softened in the rain till they were so pliable that the river’s pull stretched them into long strands of hair.
Then the rain stopped and the thunder grumbled like a child’s tantrum reluctantly petering out. The clouds parted and the sun peaked through, casting its brilliance upon Hama as she stood motionless in the turbulent water. She cast her eyes on the hilltop from whence she’d come and sighed, viewing the gaping hole in the ground. Not far above stood Great Oak, drooping even more than before under the weight of its soaking leaves.
Hama threw back her hair and emerged from the water. And then she danced. She smiled and laughed as she pranced and whirled, barefoot and naked on the wet grass. And when she was done, she bounced up the hill to her home turf with her chin up and her shoulders back. She eyed the hole in the ground on one hand and sized up Great Oak on the other. Then she laughed and threw her arms around the languishing tree. Giggling, she stepped into the hole, closed her eyes, and raised her arms to the sky. Immediately, bark encased her body and boughs protruded out, her hair transformed into hundreds of leaves. But her bark was rich like chocolate, her leaves were thick and bright like springtime, and her limbs were high reaching like the turrets of a castle.
She chose not to produce acorns anymore, but instead, she adorned her foliage with yellow and orange flowers that smelled like jasmine and welcomed the birds. Every day, she would bathe in the river and dance on its banks. Sometimes, she’d take a walk and explore the other side of the hill. Even though oak trees don’t metamorphose, Hama did. She wasn’t an ordinary oak anymore. She was Hamadryad. She even met other dryads like her and found satyrs to dance with. Even on overcast days, there shined the sun wherever and whatever she was, and she was never cold again.
Comments