Fake It Till You Make It

Sinéad Ingoldsby
6 min readMay 16, 2021
Sunset at the Papal Cross in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, Ireland

I’ve taken to hugging trees. Well, it has been a while.

I had a brief flirtation with my first tree a few years ago during a retreat held at a stately country home. The sharing circle looked a bit shocked when I told them what I had been up to during my mindful walk, but they smiled politely nonetheless.

A few weeks ago I remembered how good it had felt to hug that tree, so I beat a path to the Botanic Gardens. Luckily I have designer trees within my 5k. I stalked about for a while and it didn’t take long before a tall, dark, and smooth looking one caught my eye — definitely an Alpha tree. But then I spotted a lumpy, wizened stump in its shadow. This tree was weathered and looked like it had a few limbs lobbed off it recently. A bit of a wreck really. My perfect match.

So I sidled up and tentatively traced my fingers over the bark. Bumpy and rough. I gave a furtive glance around. Nobody was watching, so I opened my arms wide and spread them round the trunk, nuzzling my body closer. The coarse bark tickled my cheeks and knobs of wood snuggled into my crevices. Suddenly self conscious, I untangled myself and stepped away. I instantly regretted breaking the embrace prematurely. But it was a sunny bank holiday, there were lots of families around and I couldn’t be certain that the tree had given its informed consent.

I continued my walk, smiling a little brighter following the fleeting sensory pleasure. In Griffith Park I noticed a stretch of grass populated with saplings. The peals of children’s laughter and buzz of groups chatting was audible through the shrubbery. But this part of the park was quieter, a solitary person propped up against almost every tree. I found my own and sat down, my back supported by the sturdy stem. I studied my fellow singletons — one reading, another scanning his phone and a woman asleep in the sun, her legs resting on the roots of her chosen tree. I took off my shoes and socks, squidging my bare feet into the damp grass, and sat — watching, listening and breathing.

I mulled over everything that has been stripped away from us this past year, all those branches that have been hacked off. I calculated how long it has been since I hugged another person, before we were warned that to show affection could kill the ones we love. It has been a year half-lived in black and white. Yet sitting in the sun, bolstered by my tree, the glint off the river and flashes of colour from passing walkers burst through. I closed my eyes and felt the warm rays kiss my eyelids. I regretted not digging out the sun cream before I left the house. But sometimes you need to feel the burn on your skin to be reminded that you’ve had your day in the sun.

My knobbly tree in the Botanic Gardens, Dublin, Ireland

A few days later I found myself in the Phoenix Park trying to run. It’s something I started during Lockdown 2. The walks just weren’t cutting it anymore. Pushing myself to the point that I’m about to keel over is the only way I can be certain I’m still alive at the moment. As I collapsed, hyperventilating I spotted a copse of trees, again with individual humans leaning against them. I hobbled over to one and, after a few pretend stretches, reached out and hugged it, hard. This time I was bolder. I clasped the tree close and squeezed. Even the herd of deer gazing in judgement didn’t put me off. I rubbed my face off the scratchy trunk and sighed. Afterwards I lay beside my tree watching a fiery sun set over the papal cross, the bristly bark still stinging my cheek. Nature’s stubble rash I suppose.

The tingle didn’t last long. My Achilles tendon put a halt to my gallop. The sun came out again but I succumbed to the rabbit hole of Netflix and stayed shrouded in my living room, watching series after series of Narcos. Outside others were sea swimming, slurping ice creams and chugging cans but I didn’t even bother watching Mícheál’s address to the nation. South American drug barons chopping each other into pieces more suited my mood. On Twitter everyone was tearing each other apart — about breaking the rules. NPHET threatened that we could have nine thousand cases a day by the summer, and then it started to snow. I put on another episode of Narcos just to cheer myself up. It didn’t work.

So I signed up for a yoga laughter workshop. If anyone had told me fourteen months ago that I would be rolling out of bed at the crack of dawn to high five total strangers on a computer screen in my pyjamas; well, I certainly would have sniggered. But here I was pretending to chuckle about credit card bills and bad wifi connections at 8am on my day off. Apparently the brain doesn’t distinguish between feigned laughter and the real kind. The same endorphins are released regardless. Within minutes I was cackling like a rabid hyena and screeching loud enough to wake up the neighbours. In fairness it probably isn’t the weirdest thing they’ve heard through the walls.

When the hilarity subsided I felt a surge of energy, despite a mere three hours of sleep haunted by a hatchet wielding Pablo Escobar. I wondered what to do next. I decided I needed to dance around the kitchen. That worked in Lockdown 1. So I put on a playlist that my friend Lisa compiled for International Women’s Day. More than five hundred songs by feisty females that she issued around the same time that the Mother and Baby Homes report was published. It’s been a dismal year, particularly for Mná na hÉireann, but the last few months have definitely been the bleakest.

First up on the random shuffle was Sinéad O’Connor’s Mandinka. I opened the windows wide and roared out the words “I don’t know no pain. I feel no shame.” I thought about my mother’s birthday coming up and how I would love more than anything to gift her a hug to make up for the year I’ve spent leaping away like a scalded cat anytime she got within a two metre distance.

Dee Lite sang that “The Groove Is in The Heart” so I forced my face into a grimace and stamped in time to the music.

I tried not to dwell on the fact that if I still lived ninety miles up the road in Belfast I’d be vaccinated by now. Meanwhile down here Live Line was telling tales of ninety-six year olds still waiting for a jab and the news was full of stories of people jumping the queue. I kept stomping my feet.

By the time Madonna came on, my Achilles heel was squealing for mercy. I danced through the pain.

Kate Bush crooned “Like the sun coming out. I just know that something good is gonna Happen.” I wasn’t so sure. It has seemed more like we’re limping towards a finish line that is nowhere in sight.

I threw back my head and howled with fake laughter and then, just like that, I felt better.

The sun did come out, again and again, and everything sparkled in its bright light. The numbers started to go down and the mood music from NPHET briefings was suddenly upbeat. Finally granted the freedom of movement around our counties, I sought out the beauty of places I have never been and delighted in walks with friends that had been denied for so long. It didn’t even matter if it was dark and raining. There was so little to talk about yet so much to say. I could barely get the words out. And then came the texts that my parents got their first vaccines. I burst into tears — of joy and relief — and felt the flicker of hope that this really might be nearly over.

I can’t wait for that hug. But I will, however long it takes, because there are too many hugs that will never be given. So I’ll grin and bear it and keep up that phony laughter.

In the meantime there are forests full of trees.

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Sinéad Ingoldsby

Dublin based freelance writer and TV Producer/Director