The Memoirist

Tree Story, in Love

Everyone has one

You would think my favorite tree would be a Palm tree. The stately Royal Palms were our ubiquitous guardians growing up in South Florida. We’d sit on the wrought iron fenced front patio in our chairs. Really our grandparents’ chairs, comfy from years of the straw rope seats forming to their plush bottoms. We’d watch the flocks of birds getting drunk on the palm berries, waiting expectantly for the inebriated birds to dive-bomb cars and people. Not us!! We scrambled to our mother, already hiding in the house, deathly afraid of birds.

We’d ride our bikes to the beach along wide lanes in wealthy neighborhoods lined with these royal watchmen, looming, ensuring we didn’t dally. Arriving at the beach to seductive curving palm trees rustling in the ocean breezes and shading clusters of beautiful people and families gathered there. Latin rhythms and salty sea air tang, blazing sun and shimmering warm water gently lapping along the coarse sandy beach, children’s laughter and spicy smells of barbeque building a multidimensional weave of reality. As if the palm trees themselves created it.

Palm trees should be my favorite, but they are not. Perhaps they were too plentiful, too ordinary, too present. No, my favorite trees are Aspen. This is the true story of how that came to be. I discovered them when I was deep in the bloom of love, first married, and moved to the mountain west. Among the fiery steeple of a Utah forest ablaze in the setting sun, among Bristlecone Pine, Oak Gambel, Bigtooth Maple, White Fir, and Boxelder, I am introduced to Aspen. Mystical circles of stands of Aspen, in the whisper of their leaves, speaking to each other, surely, as they flick back and forth alternating between dark and light green like little coins.

Palm trees guarded me… Aspen speak to me.

Onward to Oregon. Oh, Oregon, you didn’t have the elevation to support Aspen in our new home. In secret, my husband planted their cousin, a Birch tree, outside the laundry room window. As a young mother of 3 under the age of 5, I spent a lot of time in this room. Even my sewing table was installed there. Surprised one afternoon, I heard her whisper to me. I looked out that window, and her leaves waved a happy hello. She grew tall and true for over 25 years. When we had to cut her down, I took one last portrait of her to remind me of the love in which I’d found Aspen and the life I shared with the Birch.

Aspen and Birch it is. My tree story.

For my master’s degree in Education/Leadership in Ecology, Culture, and Learning/Sustainability, I studied trees a lot. Everyone interviewed or part of the work had a tree story. They are invaluable in our ecosystem and to our humanity. Think about it, what is yours?