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Blogs by Karen Harrington
Real Family Trees 4/14/2008 9:30:10 AM
My weekend was, in a word, sad. An oak tree in my front yard was taken down, limb by limb, by a team of four in less than fifteen minutes.
This tree, grown from a one-inch trunk, transplanted from East Texas twelve years ago, had finally matured into a wide green canopy, shading a huge swath of front yard and blocking the ugly gray metal light post on the corner. I could sit on my front porch bench with my morning coffee and watch the day come to life and feel mostly hidden behind this tree. But now, it’s gone. All that’s left is the platter-sized stump in the yard that continues to pull up water from the root. The top is pulpy and wet. It’s still trying to feed its leafy, phantom branches. The ones that the city just carried away in a giant truck. The reason? We experienced a squall-line here last week, registering winds of 87 mph. Suffice it to say, we are not the only ones experiencing tree loss right now. The trees of Plano, if they survived, are going to look funny for a few years, too. And most of the rooflines have been damaged, too. So yeah, I should get over my tree loss. But it’s still sad. I didn’t know I was this attached to this tree until this weekend. And at the risk of sounding like Carrie Bradshaw, ever ruminating over my FEEEEEEELings, I have to ask: Why be so attached to a tree?
I realize a few things. First, the façade of my house is wholly changed without this tree. Where before my yard had a park-like quality with two huge oaks shading the front walk, my house now looks like all the other McHouses in my neighborhood. With the lovely tree, it had a lot of personality. The yard looked lived in. Now, it’s bald and plain and exposed.
Second, in my writing life, trees have relieved me of a fair number of blue moods. I’ve had a private mantra: You will never write anything better than a tree. Somehow acknowledging that nature has already outdone anything I can create relieves the pressure of perfection. This pressure often leads to writer’s block, which in my opinion should be renamed writer’s fear. Just go look at a tree for a while and see if it doesn’t also allow you to make peace with your own abilities. It’s really encouraging in a way that’s hard to articulate.
And last, and probably the most sappy reason of all (pun intended) - this event reminded me of the tree in my childhood frontyard. We had an old willow tree there for a long time. One day when I was 13, my Dad cut it down, leaving a four-foot high stump. I think it had some kind of tree disease. The stump became an instant plaything. All the kids on our block came over, climbed the stump and leapt from it. It was a fun game, which is an interesting comment now that kids’ summer days are filled with X-Box activity. Would tween kids today ever play a game called “jump from the stump?” I doubt it. I liked merely standing on the stump and admiring the view, which wasn’t really a view – I could view a major street and watch the passing cars just beyond our neighborhood. Still, it was a view I couldn’t see unless I stood on the stump. I'd like to go back and ask that 13 year-old girl what the appeal was in standing on a stump. I have a few guesses. Anyone who has lived or does live in Garland, Texas might have a few guesses, too. Inevitably, this stump fell to the ground, too. I saved a chunk of it and wrote the date on it. I still have it. Weird, huh?
All of this just informs me that whether you are 13 or 40, you miss things after they’re gone. And maybe this is nature’s way of reminding us to appreciate the view while we have it.
