I silently begged the thorn bushes to grow.

I spent all of early spring waiting and watching for their spiky green shoots to pop out of the soil and tangle themselves at the base of sticky pines and towering oaks and sycamores. The spreading of thorn bushes throughout our Virginia woodlands was a physical plea for attention so much more prickly and vehement than my own soft, human one.

I would wind through the skeleton-like trees, spring beginning to spread her way along the ground with leafy growths and dappled patches of deep, purple violets—my bare feet sinking into the soft, mushy leaves, not yet blown away from the previous fall. I was in awe of the translucent, emerald green canopy unfurling delicate patterns against the expanse of the crystal blue sky beyond.

It was breathtaking. A sense of intense joy would overtake my body, a ridiculous smile creasing my freckled cheeks.

The thorn bushes were a calling I always strove to understand.

I watched them closely. What was it about them?

They were fearless, claiming their territory shamelessly, having only just met their demise the previous spring. They were messy, intrusive, threatening to choke the young trees just reaching up towards the sun. And they were many, sweeping through the forest, slowly but surely, their numbers increasing and thickening by the day.

I was none of these things. I was quiet, and I knew my place. I was neat, never making a mess or taking up too much space. And I was alone, my own headspace being the only location I felt I could occupy.

I wanted to be so many things I wasn’t: fearless, wild, free, careless even. But I was a shy kid, and too embarrassed to ask for attention I didn’t even know what I would do with once I had gained it. 

I would roam through the awakening woods, passionate and alive with vibrant promises of color and life as spring careened towards early summer.

Stiff, green shoots would push their way up through the rich, spring soil, moist from the combined effort of March’s melted snowstorms and April’s spring showers. It was almost time to give the woods a late spring cleaning.

I would run inside to my mom, finding her folding laundry or preparing a meal, and tell her how big the thorns were growing. I knew it was already on her mental calendar to get out there with clippers and make sure they weren’t taking over the woods. But I always wanted to speed the process along.

It was in those sweaty spring hours that I felt closest to my mom. She was in the woods with me, by her own volition. She was wild, vengeful, and fearsome. Determination lined the heart-shaped contours of her pale face. She was a force of nature, her act of destruction an unmatched annual celebration of the warmer months of summer to come.

I felt tumultuous joy reverberating through my young bones, my heart pumping with the sweaty effort of tearing thorns from their tangled homeland. Tossing, tearing and clipping long, spiked shoots from the ground and transferring them into the rusty, red wheelbarrow was somehow soothing.

But I never lost myself in the task of it so deeply that I couldn’t glance up as often as possible, taking my mother in. She was akin to Athena in my young eyes, brandishing her clippers like a practiced weapon of war against the spiked thorns. My mother, a general of the masses, as she wound her way diligently through the surrounding forest for the sole purpose of removing the thorns from the glorious midst of surrounding trees.

And she was in the woods. That was the best part. We were experiencing nature together in a way she understood.

It wasn’t how I often  imagined it could be, disappearing into its midst and soaking up its pure and beautiful energy together, looking into each other’s eyes from time to time and smiling with relief, knowing we understood each other and absolutely nothing had to be explained.

But that didn’t matter. We were together.

She would explain the origin of thorns as we worked.

The thorns, representative to her as “sin” couldn’t be left to their own devices or, heaven help us, they would choke the trees, representative of “life” and “good.”

She would stretch the physical act of removing thorns from the woods to that of the spiritual realm; in her eyes, the sins in our life were comparative to these pests in spiked, underbrush form. They symbolized the constant battle between good and evil. She would speak of Adam and Eve at the very beginning of time, and the deep sorrow Adam must have felt each season when it was time to clear the thorns and he was reminded of humanity’s fall from God’s presence.

Thorns, according to my mother, were a physical representation of all that was wrong with the world: painful to the touch and fast spreading, essentially nature’s equivalent to man-made forest fire.

I loved that nature told a story.

I was in awe of the happenings of history—that decisions had been made by the very first humans whose effect was so powerful that we were still experiencing the outcome. It was the same feeling of marvel when considering outer space, and how its dark and sparkling expanse stretches out into eternity. How time has no set beginning or perceived ending.

I would nod in agreement or assumed understanding, occasionally asking a question to further her breakdown of the connection between our surroundings and the spiritual realm. Taking in my surroundings, I remember marveling at my mother’s words, wondering what it must have felt like to be Eve and know a world without thorn bushes.

Sometimes I imagined I was her, the one and only woman on earth, tearing thorns from the rocky earth alongside Adam. But, in glancing over at my mother again, I would realize time and time again that I wouldn’t give up these thorn bushes if I had the choice.

I silently thanked Eve for her part in bringing about the thorns.

At the end of a long day spent removing thorn bushes from the woods, I snuggled my head into my pillowcase, a patterned nest of pink and green floral. My pale blonde hair fanned out lazily across the fabric, still damp from a hot bath. I let my mind wander from my mother’s words in the woods to my own musings as I drifted off.

Eve never had a mother, so she didn’t know that her pain could be a gift. I imagined going back in time and running up to her, clasping her beautiful face in my small hands or throwing my arms around her neck. I would tell her it was all okay, that the curse she caused on this earth was a gift after all. It was a chance to spend quality time in the woods with my mom on a shared task sometimes lasting from early afternoon into evening.

It’s not that my mother didn’t spend time with me or my other siblings indoors or give me ample attention throughout any given day in her own ways. But spending time in the woods with her like this was different, magical even. It’s where I felt like she had the best chance of understanding me. I felt like we were on equal ground.

The woods were my sanctuary, my safe haven, a shadowed green expanse of endless possibilities.

My younger sister and I spent countless hours weaving our way through the trees looking for fairy castles or gathering leafy additions to our acorn stew that was forever and always “boiling” over sticks and dry, crackling leaves—our makeshift fire nestled in the corner of the log-cabin our father had built for us.

We spent endless lazy afternoons in the summertime, melting popsicles in hand, wandering down to the stream at the bottom of our hill, pausing along the way to rest our fingertips in freshly pressed deer prints or to gather handfuls of wildflowers to bring back to mom.

The woods were where I felt understood, wild even, and one with nature.

It’s where I felt my emotions freely, away from the prying eyes and unwanted questionings of eight other siblings, I would read and cry and write and sing and pray or simply, be. The woods were where I felt closer to God than any other place as a kid, and even now as an adult. Not arranged neatly in a pew, awaiting the words of a man or a woman speaking on God’s behalf, interpreting his thoughts and his love towards me. Not around a wooden, kitchen table during a family Bible study or strewn out across chairs, couches, and the floor at youth nights.

It was in the woods that I felt at peace. In the shadow of the trees and dappled sunlight, I gave myself permission to feel, to feel deeply, and to feel everything. I wanted my mom to be a part of that. I wanted my mom to connect to the woods the way that I did, to feel safe there with me.

Somehow my mom always found time for each of us, reading us stories or singing with us as we finished up dishes in the kitchen. She was, still is, and always will be one of the kindest and most loving women I have ever come to know. I was never very good at sharing my emotions, preferring to hold them inside until I could better understand them and sort through them myself.


I felt that if my mom could sink into the shadow of the forest with me, just to be there with me, there wouldn’t be any need for an explanation of my feelings or emotions anymore. She would just know. But first, I needed to learn to be more like the thorns; determined, fearless, and unashamed of the space I take up.