Why the Trees?

Why have I spent my life enamored with trees ?

Survivor of Katrina, the Southern Live Oak stands alone. 

Is it their shapes, like the Southern Live oak I once danced around in Biloxi, Mississippi before Katrina tore them to shreds, or the limb I sat upon in the yard of the mansion where I dreamed I was a princess?

No, I was a child then.

Birnam Oak, Scotland

Perhaps it was the size and shape of the Birnam Oak in Scotland where ten people could gather 'round, and where several adults could hide inside the tent like opening in the trunk  that captured my attention. I could imagine the centuries of peoples who had loved this tree, who had touched this tree before.

The height of the giant Redwoods in Northern California fascinated our family when we spent the day gazing to tops of these historic native mansions. Our children stood there gazing upward, measuring themselves against the history of time. I wonder what my parents imagined as they drove through the heart of a giant Sequoia in Yosemite on their honeymoon in 1946. 

Hutchinson, Ks.

My imagination tells me that it is the curvature of their spines, the shapes I imagine living between those lines, especially when the winter winds clear the sky of leaves, and limbs, there I see a crooked heart leaning northward in the old ragged tree, worn from decades of bending and breaking from the southwest winds.   

 

On a hilly walk through a cold Wisconsin park, I encountered an old man withered from years of rains, ice, snow, heat; broken from storms and raging floods. His face felt smooth to my touch. He shared no words, but I felt his life deep in my soul. 

I watch the trees and wonder, when will spring arrive, oh, tell me please.

On a windy day my eyes see a glimpse of pink on the skinny flowering crabapple tree. Then one day the Oklahoma landscapes burst into color with while dogwoods, faithful redbuds, tulip trees, and Magnolias smelling sweeter than before. 

Trees have shown me that all greens are not equal, or was that Beatrix Potter, who told Peter to feast his eyes on green and helped me to see her world. While Beatrix watched from an open window and wrote, I walked among the trees wherever they might grow along my life's journey. 

My eyes absorb he green from the most yellow of greens to the bluest of green. As the sunshine hits or the winds blow,, greens glow in the different light and breezes. I smell spring and my heart begins to feel lightness in the air. 

In the steamy summer months it is the cool shade of the trees that offers relief from the burning sun on the golf course. In our backyard the shade from the silver leaf maple furnishes calm shade and serenity. 

Out my writing window I watch tiny birds gather round the bird feeder. I talk to the river birch and ask if the broken bark hurts; its roughness does not lend to rubbing. Last year our river birch lost its twin, attached at the base, but ripped apart by the ice storm. How painful I thought to lose something that close, yet the single river birch managed to survive and thrive. 

When autumn arrives the greens fade to dry yellows and browns, and some lucky leaves draw crowds to photograph their striking golds and reds with speckled designs.

Aspen grove in Colorado

Trees can heal us in so many ways. Rubbing my arm against an Aspen tree in Colorado may not have cured my aches that day, but I walked away with a vivid memory. 

Still I ask myself, why the trees. Why do I find them in my dreams, why do I search for trees when I travel, why do I sometimes feel rooted, strong and flush like an Evergreen, and other days feels old, writhed, wrinkled, and withered like the olive trees that Van Gogh painted?

Yes, still I stand tall.

 

Augusta, Georgia

That is it !

I realize now that I stand like a tree withered slightly from the storms of life. I have found the ability to bounce back from adversity. I bend in the wind and don't break, and still I dance among the trees and dream of far away places. 

 

*For other fascinations with trees check out these sites:

My friend, Martha Slavin, writes from Northern California on her blog

Post Cards in the Air

Beverly Herndon is trained in the ancient art of Chinese painting. 

Check out her work in the Norman Transcript article:

Baroness of Brushes