A Thing For Trees

Having grown up in Northern Michigan amidst sheltering maples, it’s no wonder I have a deep and abiding love for trees. Being in the woods, underneath the shadows of the many different kinds of leaves, I feel at peace. At one with the Earth, connected to everything: solid and strong.

Taggart and I have gone hiking the last two days and there is this huge oak on the trail that I am drawn to embrace (yes, literally!). Every time Taggart and I walk past it, I stop and wrap my arms as far around it as I can, and I breathe. So solid, so strong. Seemingly permanent. Yet, further down the trail, we see another old oak, hugely round and hollow. And I am reminded that even trees don’t live forever. That’s always sort of a surprising recollection to make. Even trees don’t live forever yet we take for granted their seeming sense of permanence.

I went for a walk around the neighborhood this afternoon and was almost home when I noticed the tiniest little oak tree in someone’s unkempt yard. It was more sprout than tree – a wannabe tree some day long into the future. Yet, someone had taken the time to put a little chicken wire around it. Someone thought enough of this little guy that they had gone to the trouble to protect it. That same attention to detail was not given to the rest of their yard, but this little one, well someone had high hopes for him and wanted to give him his chance. Very thoughtful of whomever. Very sweet. A loving gesture. A random act of kindness. I hope that wire helps. That this tiny sprout one day becomes a mighty oak.

And then there’s my husband, the guy out there schlepping pharmaceutical drugs (he’s a pharmaceutical drug rep) but whose degree is in forestry (it all leads back to trees). The guy who could take or leave organized religion but who has told me being in the woods is where he finds his spirituality. The guy whom my dad would have really liked.

My dad, a tall unyielding pine himself, also had a thing for trees. A self-assigned tree redeemer, he stayed mad at my mom’s family his whole life for making money in the lumber industry. He also once wrote a poem called “Cathedral of Trees”. I wonder if he knew how defining that phrase has become for me. Trees are, in many ways, my religion: they connect me to my loved ones, ground me spiritually, provide breathing space, remind me of my mortality, give me hope, afford perspective, and offer a respite from the world. That all this starts from a tiny seed is a miracle. And with enough love, light, water, and chicken wire, it can become part of a cathedral: yours and mine.