I collect trees. That grove of oaks out A-1 Mountain Road, the grandmother juniper beside a trail north of town, the biggest aspen of them all on the west slope of the Peaks and the trees that lean over the St. George River in Maine to drop golden leaves each fall. And the mulberry I climbed when I was a child in Phoenix. And the one I call My Tree, a pal I met in high school who has become a sturdy, steady friend for life.
In high school our hiking club filled up Beaver Creek campground with two station wagon loads of students and their tents and sleeping bags and laughing and teasing. As much as I loved the joking rituals around reconstituting freeze-dried turkey tetrazinni, I also needed quiet. Even fun can overwhelm an introvert. The sensitive soul I had as a child, I still have because I learned to get away when the mix of humans got too chaotic. I set my tent up before dark like the others and wandered downstream into the quiet and shadows of day’s end and there I met a sycamore of such grace, I sat beneath her into the dark, unafraid to make my way back by the beam of my two-cell plastic Mallory flashlight. After our group hiked miles the next day I was tired, too, but while others snacked before loading up, I stole away again to see the braided roots, the dappled bark, the broad handed leaves of My Tree.
Over the years I beetled up and down I-17 with groups going to the Grand Canyon and on missions to teach in schools as a visiting artist. When I was driving solo, I often turned off to do the bit of dirt road and the few minutes walk to visit my favorite sycamore. And I forgot her for years, too; good friendships can bear this. Though I eventually lived in Flagstaff, I rarely went to Beaver Creek. Then the time came when my trips to Phoenix were urgent and sorrowful as I helped my siblings with the care of my mother through her last years. I was teaching short stories two nights a week at Coconino Community College and creative writing on Friday morning. I’d leave Flagstaff at noon to have time for a walk to my tree before going on to Mayo Clinic Hospital. I needed that short sit with flowing water and leaves rustling before meeting the fragile old woman my mother had become. Tired and sad from time in the city, I’d stop again days later on my way north, to give to run-off from the Mogollon Rim my fears and sorrows before getting to Flagstaff in time to prepare for a Tuesday night discussion of Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.”
Years passed and once again, this winter, I found myself in a valley hospital as I joined others to help one of our gang get through an unexpected 20-day stay. One late night after watching the Oscars with my morphined friend, I slumped through too-bright hallways making the wrong turn again between the cafeteria and chapel. Feeling tired and bleak I leaned against a wall and almost fell asleep there, standing, until I noticed two women with wide mops. Slowly, carefully, they pushed along in sync to not miss a single inch of hallway floor. Their flow reminded me of water by red rock. I could almost hear sycamore leaves rustling.
Later, describing lessons from My Tree my face became so softened with affection, a friend asked, “Why have you never introduced us?” You would think I’d throw a tea party every year to share such company with others, but maybe I sense the tree is a bigger introvert than I am and so I go there alone. “But you have met my tree,” I could have said, I thought later. “How do you think I learned the tenacity to walk out of the Grand Canyon? And these days of white cell counts and cat scan puzzles? I get through them with an equanimity and tenderness I learned at the foot of a tree. Those knobby knees of roots that forge through rocks toward nourishment taught me to embrace whatever comes. Where starry nights seem caught in branches, I learned trust.”
It’s true. I wear the company I keep in the lines of my face I bring to each day. Woven into whatever shape of heart I share are wisdoms from all my friends, including My Tree.
