mrudzio

Are you by any chance...

a 'Pan'theist? If so, then you are in good company. Shakespeare was a pantheist also. To see in nature a sentient awareness of cosmic proportion is quite good. There is a literary device, a figure, associated with this outlook. it is called prosopopeia. When the poet has the stars shed a tear he/she is using prosopopeia. At any rate, Pan be with you!

Dear Javaneh, my baobabs

Dear Javaneh,

my baobabs were Tanzanian.

I'm glad to hear that the ones you knew in Senegal were more civil and outgoing than mine. Maybe I just encountered a few rogue trees (bad apples from the barrel) gone feral in the wilds and living like cowboys. I wouldn't want to judge all baobabs by the behaviour of a small minority.

The ones I met were all morose (and definitely male).

Many thanks for your info.

Lilly's Magnolia

Azarin………!

Wow. Thank you for drawing my attention to Lilly’s Magnolia. It’s a masterpiece. Such a powerful image of the magnolia taking over little Lilly’s life! It’s been with me all morning. At times I thought I was reading something out of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I loved it. Thank you!

I don’t really see much difference between fiction and non-fiction. Neither one is able to completely escape the other. It’s like the stories your grandmother tells you about her childhood. It’s another world. She’s told them so often, and added so much to them, that they begin to acquire a kind of “mythic” fairy-story quality. They aren’t fiction and they aren’t non-fiction. In fact, they’re much truer (in a greater sense) than if she had just given you the bare “facts”.

I don’t know whether you’ve ever seen the film “Big Fish.” It’s not a “great” film by any stretch of the imagination, but it deals with exactly these themes: a father who tells far-fetched stories about himself; and a son who has only ever known his father through his stories and desperately wants to know the “Truth” (which for him are “facts"). When the father develops a terminal illness, the son sets out to discover the truth behind the stories and is exasperated when all he is given are even more far-fetched “stories”.

Somewhere in the film (if my memory doesn’t fool me) the father says angrily: “You want just the details…. with all the truth taken out”. And in many ways, fiction can be seen as this “added truth” , without which we would only have lifeless details. At the end of the film, when the father is dying, the son comes to realize that his father's life only makes sense in fiction, through the stories, however far-fetched and ridiculous they are. In other words he comes to understand the “truth” of Fiction. And in time enters into the stories himself, as one of the characters.

I think telling stories is incredibly important in our lives. It’s not a childish or a futile pastime. All of us tell stories about ourselves every day to others, and also to ourselves. Sometimes we even begin to believe our own stories! And that’s fine too.

Loved the story!

The baobab tree

I loved reading your blog about this tree. I saw many of them in Senegal but my take on them was different to yours,

If I had to give it a gender, it would be female because it seems that its main purpose is to provide nourishment to local tribes and animals. Its often known as the upside down tree (with it's roots above the surface rather tha below) and it produces something called monkey bread, which is very unpleasant to taste and smellls awfull but is full of protein and sustains tribal ppl in times of hardship. Also the bark stores an incredible amount of water which helps those tribal ppl when there is a drought.  The wideness of its girth, which as you will know is hollow often provides shelter for travellers or animals.

I have to say this is one of my favorite trees because its not what it seems.

How do I know all this ..... because I stayed with a tribe in Senegal during a trip there.

Javaneh

Does the tree know about its destiny?

Dear mrudzio,

I am blown away by your general knowledge about the trees, and especially by this detailed description of a particular tree; impenetrable and distant, with no heart and afraid of intimacy. I could even grasp a hidden feeling of envy towards the tree, its strength, its longevity, its splendor, its superiority.

But then I read the last words: “The world is a dangerous place; never give your heart; sit tight and turn your attentions inwards. Make wood.”

Such a surprise! Such a terrifying ending! No matter how resistant the tree has been facing the world, still at the end the world is going to win over!

But would the poor tree know about this? That they’re going to cut and chop its gorgeous branches? That it’s going to be transformed into chairs and tables and ladders and….”stuff”? That this distance, this impenetrability and this serenity is just an illusion?  

Your story reminded me of one of my older stories when I was looking for a particular tree to use as the object of affection of my main character and I chose a magnolia: http://www.iranian.com/main/2008/lilys-magnolia  

In that story, my tree defeated its destiny …but what can I say? Basically, I like to write “fiction”!

Thanks again for your wonderful writing!

Azarin

PS: Is it true that you're also writing a novel?

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A male tree

Dear Flying Solo,

there are a lot of good male trees out there. But this one is not one of them.

If the baobab were a man, he’d be the kind who spends all his time and money in the gym “pumping iron” (how I hate that expression!). A handsome, good-looking tree by anyone's standards, he has rippling wooden biceps and simply oozes testosterone out of every one of his knotted twiglets. Solid and dependable, he’s the type that women feel they can “make something” out of. But that “something” turns out to be unimaginative furniture: doors, tables and chairs. He’s a good provider, but is not at all interested in all the delicate things in a young tree’s life like making leaves and buds, creating pretty flowers, hanging out dangly pods, decorating your bark in vibrant colours, swaying in the night breezes, tickling the moon in your branches, caressing passers-by or holding regular parties for the local wildlife and bugs.

These are what other trees simply live (and creak) for.
The baobab is too wrapped up in himself. Too immobile. All-knowing. Inflexible. Dull wood.

Literary Critic

Dear Literary Critic,

you are a treasure! Thank you.
And keep up the good work.

We have need of you.

I’ll only mention one error

It’s Land Rover, not "landrover".

A male tree

mrudzio

This tree is male?  Somehow it disturbs me that it looks inwards and is afraid of intimacy.  I'd like to think that at least in the world of trees - the male ones would open their hearts.

I sense pain in this piece.  I wish you had written more.

Great

You better be writing that novel. It will be a hit.