I love trees. I’m not sure why but I feel an internal, joyful pull when I see them. We watched The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers movie a few weeks ago with our kids. When the Ents (the tree-like creatures) call the other trees, when I watched them walk ever so carefully, slowly, yet purposefully, when I see the two hobbits riding in the treetops, I can feel my smile.
There is something about the color green – mossy green, velvet green, rich, deep, Earthy green – which gives me pause, makes me take a deep inhale and a long slow exhale, which feels like comfort and home. I remember being in a rainforest in Alaska, hiking to see a glacier, such dichotomy between where I was and where I was going. The forest trail was rich with moisture and moss and a carpet of green and when the trail opened up and I saw the glacier, its glistening white with edges of blue against a stark background of gray/black rock, I felt disappointment. The trail of moss and trees and rich, copper colored bark enlivened me more than the sight of the bright white, misty blue and charcoal black. The glacier was interesting but the forest was inspiring.
I’m thinking about my first memory of trees, back to my family’s yearly trek to northern Minnesota, to stay in cabins on a lake and fish and swim and play for a week. The drive was about 8 hours from my home and I knew we were getting close when both edges of the highway become nothing but thick, coniferous forests, hiding bear and deer and crystalline lakes. For me, it felt like we were entering a completely different world, one I loved.
As I sit here, I can feel the soft sand of the lake’s beach, I can hear the wind moving through the trees, can smell the charcoal grill my dad cooked on every night, and can hear the creeky teeter-totter my best friend and I played on under those trees. I could not recognize my love for trees then, but I certainly recorded their presence in my memories.
I took Botany in college and did not do well; I struggled to identify plants from memorized leaf structure and old, dried up and falling apart samples of flowers. I tried to take forestry but ended up dropping it due to too many hours of classes that semester. Forestry class was a luxury I couldn’t afford. I look back on it, a bit disappointed in myself.
Then after college, I moved across the country and fell in love with the forests of Southern California. The trees in the mountains of Idyllwild, Jefferson pines, were tall and skinny with thick bark and pine cones the size of a small dog. Their bark smells like vanilla, and any pine forest, where the ground is littered with spent needles and there is a slight breeze, will take me back to a moment where I stopped and closed my eyes, on a trail, somewhere in the San Jacinto mountains, and I listened and I smelled and I smiled, because all I could think was how lucky, that this was my life.
Like a delicious taste that comes and grows more delicious with age, trees have slowly crept into my soul and permeated my heart. I love to smell and touch and listen to them. I love that they communicate via fungi on their roots. I love that there are Mother trees who look out for young ones in the forest. I love that Aspen forests are one large organism, all born from the same root system. I love that tree bark is sometimes white, sometimes brown, sometimes rainbow. Sometimes strong, some peeling, some sweet smelling. I love that pines can be short and fat or tall and narrow. And as I think about pine trees, in particular, I think of how the human race is a reflection of the same. All pine/coniferous trees, yet all different. All humans, yet all different. And it makes me wonder, are there narcissistic trees, leader trees, angry trees, selfish trees, loving trees, caring trees, kind trees and mean trees? Do they bicker? Do they love? If they can communicate, and not if, but because they can communicate, can they not have these other ways and processes as well?
Over the past few years, my husband and I have been planting trees, over 20 new ones in our yard.
“Twenty trees?”, you ask, “How? Trees are expensive. Trees need space.”
Not true and true. We buy from the Arbor Day Foundation (this is not a plug, just shared information). If you become a member (minimum donation of $10), they will mail you ten trees of your choice (your local varieties only) or you can choose to have ten trees planted in one of America’s vast forests recently devastated by fire, or you can use your dues to support their education efforts. As little or as much money as you want to spend.
So for the past two years, we have made donations and planted 10 flowering trees (dogwoods, redbuds, etc) and 10 white pine, along with others we purchased. Living on a little over two acres, most of which is grass but some of which is deciduous woods, offers us space to plant.
Trees sequester carbon dioxide through the process of photosynthesis; they, along with all plants, are one small answer to climate change. I could say we plant these trees to counter our carbon footprint, but really, we just like trees. We like the idea of planting something and watching it grow over time, changing the landscape of this small patch of Earth we live on. They are baby trees now; in 20 years there will be shade with fawn sleeping underneath, squirrels running through the trees, and birds building nests and fox finding shelter. We may not be living here to see the final product, but that is okay. Somebody else will enjoy our plantings.
If I could go back to college I would study trees, coniferous ones. Or maybe become an entomologist. No, a marine biologist. Nope, better yet, a climatologist. This would encompass all of the above because they (trees, oceans, animals/bugs) play a role in the warming of Earth.
That’s the blessing of science. You learn one thing and then realize you need to learn this other related thing and before you know it, you’ve learned a ton and really, you’ve learned how much you don’t know.
I’m not a tree expert, just one who loves to stand beneath their boughs and smile, who loves to listen to the rustle of needles and leaves in the wind, who stands in awe at the moss which grows on their downed limbs, and who many times has wrapped her arms around a trunk, rested her check against bark, closed her eyes, and smiled. I hope wherever you are today, you can reach and hug those things in your life which bring you joy.
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