it can’t be easy to be the lone tree in a big, big farmfield. the wind will batter you. the sun will parch you. the snow and ice will pile next to your trunk and bend your limbs down low. the rain will pummel you. you will be tested and you must be steadfast. your very presence may be questioned; it would be easier to plow straight lines than to plow around you.
but consider this: the birds will flock to you. any creatures needing shade or shelter will curl up under your canopy. you will exhale clean oxygen. and wildflowers and grasses will grow at your base. you will interrupt the horizon line with your very beautiful tree shape. you will give visual perspective to the vast fields.
and so you stand there – alone. ready to greet the next day and the next. despite it all.
you know it would be easier if there were other trees standing with you – perhaps a simple stand of trees or maybe a small woods or forest. you know it would be easier if there were even just one other bush or plant holding vigil with you in the big field. you know it would be easier if the west winds would not assail you, you with nothing to block their assault.
and even if the elements push on you, if the farmer ponders your value, if the aloneness feels void of hope, you keep standing.
because you know that you are a tree and that your truth matters and that your presence counts.
i worry about the ferns. fragile, willowy, tender shoots determinedly growing up from under the pile of leaves waiting, decaying, protecting the garden through fall’s end and winter’s scourge until, finally, spring. and then, there they are. despite it all. back in the northwest corner of the yard, tucked in along the fence line and next to the old garage.
they start slowly, peeking out, and then – voila – they are taller, taller, and unraveling their curly tops, like a modern dancer, curling up one vertebrae at a time, opening and embracing dappled sunlight. without concern for any part of history or future, they just grow. they are perennials, so keeping them healthy – a bit of simple nurture – ensures this fern garden in the back of our yard.
i’ve grown other plants in this yard through the years. ornamental grasses, day lilies, ferns, hosta, a couple peonies, these are the thrivers. purple iris, black-eyed susans, a planted lavender garden all fell to the wayside.
the neighbor’s snow-on-the-mountain, creeping under the fence, devoured the iris. wild mustard gave the black-eyed susans a run. the lavender was taken over by boxwood elder on a rampage.
but the delicate ferns…through dogdog’s puppyhood and now his adulthood…through the drought and maybe too much sun and maybe too much rain…through the late-late springs and the early winters…have survived.
in each of them i see the fortitude of the dancer, practicing unfurling vertebrae by vertebrae, forgetting all else – all negativity, all lack, all the torrential storms – in the tender, rich, vibrant forward-movement of now. full of beautiful.
“there is an entire forest full of the most incredible flowers, plants and trees inside you, and you are ignoring all of it to nurture a single tree that they planted inside your heart and abandoned.
the people who left you this way don’t deserve to become your favourite stories to tell. you are a massive forest full of beautiful and vibrant stories and every single one of them deserves you more than those that abandoned you to hell.”
some things just happen despite it all. for us, it’s lettuce.
despite the global pandemic, despite the absolute necessity of social change from deep roots of racism, despite political chaos, despite the economic impact we have felt, despite the isolation, despite the loneliness of missing, despite the challenge of seeing others maskless and cavalier, despite the sheer lack of responsible federal leadership in this country, despite our country’s inability to respond appropriately to a health crisis, despite questionable ally stances, despite ignoring the human-caused-destruction of mother earth, despite a pitiful inequity of economics, healthcare, opportunity in america, despite the mixed messages, despite the glib words of those ignoring the upward trend of a deadly virus, despite untruths, despite actions-that-speak-louder-than-words, despite mean-spirited messages and agendas, despite people and leaders screaming across aisles over constitutional rights, despite children killed by gun violence, despite extremism, despite empty words of piety, despite rage-filled brutality, despite an incapacity to live peacefully in community, despite unanswered questions and confusion, despite a lack of reassurance, despite the worry, despite the fear, despite the challenges, despite not-knowing, despite the grief, despite the yearning for normal, some things happen.
reverse threading 