For the Love of Trees

     My earliest memory is of a tree. Perhaps three or four, I skittered along the sidewalk, hand in hand with dad on smooth gray slates. He stopped, pointing to the canopy towering over us – uprooted slab beneath our feet, dappled trunk near to me and round-ish lilly pad leaves spreading above.  This is a sycamore, he said.

     Not soon after that, another tree came to favor on the dog-eared page of a small book called A Friend is Someone Who Likes You.  This was a book letting me know – for the first time – that a tree could be a friend. 

     Much later, travel far away for my undergrad degree had me learn– perhaps a bit late – that there was such a major as forestry. I imagined that to be a wonderfully fascinating pursuit.

    I reminisce about the sugar maple that grew up with us through the years.  It was likely a young adult when we first met it, and it held a canopy over our backyard wiffle-ball games for years, shielding us from summer sun and providing leafy landing pads for legions of fireflies at night. When it had to go for threat of its immensity overhanging the garage, I kept a section of the trunk – a tribute to the loss of a friend.

       Most recently, I saw two black and white silhouette-style pictures juxtaposed: one of branching capillaries in the human lung, and the other of outreaching twiggy tendrils of a tree, spreading from the main trunk.  Nearly identical in image but wonderfully distinct in purpose; it inhales what I exhale, and I inhale what it exhales.

     Lastly, my mind settles to my favorite spot – the hammock swing floating beneath another canopy in my own back yard. As favorite places go it may not seem like much, but it’s a place to connect to a tree, one more time. 

Rounding the end of the soup aisle – shopping cart heavy with weekly accoutrements – I swerve deftly past an older woman who blurts, “I’ve been to four Shop-rites already today, and I just can’t find stuffed potatoes!”  Taken aback and out of earshot, I mumble under my breath, “That’s dedication; I guess she really loves stuffed potatoes…” “Yeah, really!” chuckles a nearby shopper, “I would have given up after the second store.”

     Shopping before a weather event in New Jersey is akin to preparing for the apocalypse.  Any wintery mix qualifies as news, and anything over an inch on the ground is reason to begin speculation on delayed openings and school closings.  No matter that living in this populous state ensures the vast majority of us can walk to a nearby store for provisions in minutes. An event such as this – timed perfectly to thwart legions of commuters and school buses – connects all of us in one glorious, commonality. By the time I go for my usual groceries at midday, the shelves are nearly clear of meat, bread, milk, and eggs in grand anticipation. The chatter at the checkout line is all about the weather and how ridiculously crowded the shopping is – never mind that we are the ones who are making it just so.

My husband is Canadian; he had one snow day in his entire childhood school career.  Here in Jersey, a surprise snow day is part of the beauty of every winter. You just never know.

Just Sifting – Mercy

     You must know a person who is naturally endowed in a particular area –  breathing a particular skill, don’t you?  My father is a former actuary, and he is that way; watching him manipulate numbers with easeful mastery is a glimpse of giftedness.  My elder son – once a burgeoning hockey player – was grace on skates – a pleasure to watch in effortless motion. Or perhaps the jazz musician lost in improvisation – just being, or the cook in a bubbling, steamy kitchen, the bartender’s easy hospitality behind the bar, or the athlete’s physical prowess out on the field – all are glimpses of humanity at its best. 

     Conversely, imagine one thing that you find challenging. Something in which you recognize a lack of common aptitude, despite your best efforts. Perhaps it is gardening, or drawing, or mechanics, or home maintenance, or social skills, or technology.

     For me, that challenge was sports.  A sickly youngster, I was burdened with childhood illness including chronic asthma.  Gym class was always a trial for me; I was the last one to cross the finish line, the last one standing when kickball teams were picked.  I did my best to stay under the radar and at the back of the line, yet the feeling of ineptitude and dread accompanied me through much of my physical education career.

      Thus, I imagine my worst nightmare would be a school in which every class were a gym class:  first period – gymnastics, second period – dodge ball, third period – track and field, fourth period –  field hockey.  You get the picture. 

      As a special educator, I can’t help but think that this might be what school is like for my special needs students. Doing what is most challenging – publicly – five days a week, all day. For this reason, I’ll do well to pause and remember; these are the artists, singers, athletes, comedians, chefs, musicians, plumbers, and thinkers of the future.  They – like all of us – possess a multitude of talents that inform a global intellect, not just a lop-sided aptitude – or not – restricted exclusively to language arts and math.

      As a teacher and humanitarian – let me remember to teach the child and not the subject. Let me be kind, let me be compassionate, let me be merciful.  Let me be a human of the highest order, inviting others to see what is best about themselves for a lifetime of purpose.

     I can tell something is amiss because he is sitting in a new place – a strange place.  Upright in the middle of the living room, attentive to what – I don’t know.

       I make my late supper meal of yesterday’s warmed chili over rice. 

Still he is out there.  Why? I don’t know. 

     Peeking around the corner, I check.  He could be chewing on an old paintbrush – a prize plucked from the basement toolbox.  But no, he is just there – in a different way, in this odd place.  I don’t know why.

     I go back and eat my chili in solitude, me in the kitchen and him out there.  Strange to not be watched while I eat, but there is something of more importance than food out in that other room.  I peer around the corner again and he glances at me, perhaps wondering why I am so relaxed on such an occasion, one dire enough for him to forego the possibility of a shared spoonful or two of my chili.

     I finish and join him in the living room.  I cross to him and he remains still vigilant in posture and attentive to what – I don’t know.  I come to crouch beside him and follow it – his gaze through this room and into the next, where it falls solidly upon the disruption.  It is a new ottoman, square in the corner, delivered late last night. So that’s it. I flashback to him as a puppy, startled at a new tulip that had pushed its way through the spring soil since the last time we were there. It seems clear that ottoman and tulip are equally menacing in their unfamiliarity until he is certain they belong.  A day or two without incident will suffice to ease the threat, I suppose.  

     I take my pad and pen and sit down to write. I pat the cushion with my hand – an invitation – “Come on up.” He hops to the couch and collapses to his side, solid against my leg; his body relaxes and expands with the breath of easy sleep, at last.  His shift ended, he lets me take over as the ottoman fades into the recess of webby slumber.  With luck, it will be part of the furnishings of home upon waking, just as if they two had always been there, Ollie and the ottoman.

Just sifting.

I heard once that the word crisis means “to sift.”

I like that.

It seems to reduce would-be-trauma to something manageable – a simple matter of choosing

a course of action in response to a challenge.

That image of sifting has remained with me.

Sifting is what this blog is to be about.

Sifting.  Shifting.  Hmmm…

Picture a colander with life pouring into it.

What falls through?

What catches?

What is important?

What is a new way to see?

What matters?

What doesn’t?

What is helpful?

What is not?

What are boundaries?

Are they real or imagined?

Some things pass and slip away unnoticed;

what is meaningful stays –

remaining for further scrutiny, rumination.

Then to see what is suddenly, starkly there. That thing that is left behind. 

Ahhh…so, that’s it!

This is what I needed to see. 

It was there, wasn’t it? It was there all along.

Was I not sifting before?  Is that it?

Sifting.

Sifting – shifting.

Further thoughts….

A crisis isn’t so bad now.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton