I stepped into my backyard this morning to have a moment with the trees.
There are 18 trees in my backyard - mostly graceful live oaks. "Artistic," my mother calls them. In 24 years I have rarely paused to appreciate them.
Besides enhancing my property's value with a natural beauty that compares to absolutely nothing, these trees have, I realized today, cozied us into our home with a mysterious, gentle presence that I can only describe as Spirit. These trees have rocked us through thunderstorms and breezy summer days in arms that move with a lesson on standing, but bending, when hard winds blow. They have framed the world outside this study window with a lively elegance, providing high rise homes for finches and cardinals and a couple of spirited squirrels. They have held hammocks and tree houses, clotheslines and swings. They have provided shade for picnics and birthday parties, slip 'n slide competitions and long, lazy days by the pool.
They are living, giving entities.
Today we say goodbye to two of them. About 10 days ago, as I did my annual search of the treetops to see just how much longer I might have to endure the messy spring pollen drop, I noticed one of the trees was bare. We worry about oak wilt in this part of the world, so I sent a photo and email immediately to our tree guy. When he came out, he discovered a second leafless oak - and declared two fatalities in our backyard. Cause of death - drowning.
In a state where drought is a constant state of emergency, this seems almost impossible. But, in fact, the bed where these trees stood circled around cannas and ferns and angel-winged begonias was full of water most of last summer. Our inexperience with automatic irrigation systems, my zealousness to keep potted plants in the bed watered, and a series of failed experiments with a fountain led to this tragedy.
We killed our trees. These trees that have endured more years than we have lived here. Trees that have been scraped by bulldozers, strung with electrical wire, nicked with weedeaters...and survived. What they could not endure was another season of our careless quest to keep things green.
I felt like I owed them all an apology. And so I stepped out to have a moment with the trees.
Thank you, I said. You have done what you were grown to do, and you have done it well.
I am sorry, I continued. We have learned a hard lesson.
Some years ago, I sat at a dinner table with a shaman and a psychic who were engaged in an animated discussion about the conversation they had overheard the trees having the night before. I laughed it off, of course. Trees do not talk.
But, I swear, as I stood beneath them today asking for forgiveness, I heard them say, "Forgiven."
Now. Back to work.
