Goodbye Old Tree

Last week, five men showed up on our property at 8 a.m. and proceeded to cut down a tree. Not just any tree, but a 100+ foot, seventy-year-old big leaf maple. A tree that towered over me as a child, and a tree that sheltered the front of our house as an adult. A tree that bursts into green in the spring, and glows a vibrant yellow in the fall. A tree that sheds all of its leaves in November, leaves that we are still often raking into the new year. A tree that has grown humongous roots and been circled for decades by flowers: tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, bluebells, and forget-me-nots. A fairy ring, Els used to call it, Els who planted most of those flowers during the forty years that she lived here. I have only lived here for four. But as a young child, I lived next door for ten.

When I was young, Frank used to climb up in the tree himself to take out the dead limbs. I remember my parents talking about it, and Els being nervous. He took out two of the main limbs himself when they were dying, which left two massive remaining ones-- still plenty of tree. In recent years, I had noticed that the leaves on one side of the tree looked smaller- a sign of decay. There was also a smaller dead limb in the middle—“smaller”, yet still large enough that it would likely be fatal if it fell on your head. Maple is hard wood.

This year, we finally decided that we needed to get serious and do something about the tree. Our neighbors had politely enquired about its safety shortly after one of our big cedars came down one day into their backyard, missing their house by a few feet. Root rot. We hadn’t a clue.

We got several bids and no one could tell us anything conclusive without expensive testing, but everyone agreed that the maple was in its “twilight years”, and showing signs of decay. Some suggested erecting a cable that would bind together the two main limbs and prevent “catastrophic failure”, but another said that this would not guarantee that the tree would not fall. Either onto our house, onto the neighbor’s house, into the street and power lines, or- worst case scenario-- onto a person. Even if a cable could buy us a few more years or at most another decade of enjoying the tree, it was still on its way out. So we decided to shell out the big bucks and have it removed as recommended.

I thought the tree guys would be here all day; that’s what I’d been told, and even that had seemed fast to me. But when they got to work by 8:15, I could tell it would go even faster. Our family of three stood by the window and watched as the arborist spun around on a rope, wielding the saw. Crash! Down came the first branches. Down, down, down. Before we knew it, he was already working on the main two trunks, sectioning off chunks that fell with loud booms. Meanwhile, four guys with orange hard hats scampered below, wielding their own chainsaws, pulling the smaller branches up the steps to be chipped, and leaving us a pile of rounds for firewood.

Cedar was mesmerized. We ate our oatmeal on the daybed, staring out the window. Down, down, down, came the tree. By 10:00, the whine of the chainsaws was starting to get to me so I decided to take Cedar out to get some groceries. Surely they would still be here when we got back. But when we drove home at just past eleven, the yard was silent. You could still smell the gas from the saws in the air and the ground was littered with a confetti of wood shavings. Otherwise, what was left was a giant stump, five feet in diameter, and a huge pile of wood for my husband to chop.

It felt… surreal. Less than three hours and the old tree was gone. Cedar and I stepped up onto the trunk, which now was the perfect platform to give some future speech or poetry reading from, or play king of the mountain. The sky above was open, which is nice since our property is otherwise surrounded by tall trees and shielded from sunlight. But I also felt a stirring of sadness. Something that grew steadily and slowly for decades was erased within minutes. Responsible as our choice to cut down the tree was, the speed at which it was removed still felt like an incursion.

Now, when you sit at the window seat, the ideal spot to read and stare out the window all day, you can be seen from the street. Part of the beauty of that perch was that you used to be totally hidden from view, looking out on a mossy green oasis of trees. And we could pretty much walk around naked in our house and not worry. Granted, we still mostly can. But in the grand scope of how little has changed on this property over the course of decades, saying goodbye to that maple is no small thing.

Thankfully, we have one more big towering maple in back. The two maples were probably planted at the same time, anchoring the house, to the south and the north. Raking their leaves in the fall is always a long, time-consuming process, and yet, I love those trees, and by extension, those leaves. I love looking up into their lush canopies, seeing the squirrels jump from limb to limb, and the baby flickers emerge in the spring. The maple in back is also in its twilight years, but it’s not yet showing any signs of decay. We can enjoy it a while longer.

Every fall when I rake the leaves from the maples, I think of Frank and how much time and energy he used to put into caring for this yard. I had come a few times to help Frank rake when he was weak from cancer, and he’d shown me his method of getting every last leaf, creating little piles, lifting them into the wheelbarrow with the help of the rake, and then stacking the compost pile in a tidy square, a few feet high, and only when the leaves were moist so they would properly decay. For the next couple years, I made sure I was as thorough as Frank had been about getting all of the leaves. It felt important. I instructed Matthew about how the compost pile should be shaped. Because that’s the way Frank did it, and he must have had a good reason.

Eventually, though, I let this protocol slide. Now, I am no longer as vigilant about getting all the leaves (especially those pesky little ones from the plum and apple trees), and I let Matthew dictate the shape of the compost pile. These days, we don’t have the time to be perfectionists about anything. It feels good enough if we manage to get the bulk of the leaves raked, and just hold the basics of this place together, not let it slide into a state of neglect. 

These days, I have also not had much time to write about Els, Frank and the cabin. Motherhood has consumed me, and any writing energy I have has gone towards addressing my present. But now, for the first time in months, I feel a melancholy stirring inside, sprouting from that same seed of gratitude that infused me after Frank passed away, and as I moved in and discovered him and Els’s artifacts during the months that followed. This tug of melancholy reminds me of how this legacy is still waiting within me, dormant yet pungent, waiting for me to return to the outline of chapters and words I laid down over two years ago. It reminds me of how the roots of the story of Matthew, Cedar and I, and our present life in this cedar cabin, extend so much deeper and farther than the in-your-face immersion in parenting that we have been swimming and breathing through, day by day. It excites me to think about delving into Els and Frank’s past again, to find passages in Els’s letters about planting seedlings that today tower over us, or passages in Frank’s letters that hint at visions of countries and ports that no longer exist, at least not like they did then.

Everything changes. The old generation can barely recognize the new. Trees have their cycles. The one you plant today, you likely will not get to enjoy when it is full-grown and towering. But your children will. Or someone else’s children. Everything has its story. And everything, in the end, will die.

Now, the stump looks ugly, bare and obtrusive. But my husband reminded me that this is the worst it will look. Next spring, the fairy ring of blossoms will come up again, and we will get to choose a new tree to plant in their midst.

Anticipation: Second Trimester

My baby has been moving a lot lately. I’ve been aware of his movements for about a month now; he is especially active at night when I am still. His movements don’t feel sharp or jarring, but rather like gentle bubbles or rolls. I wish I could visualize how he is moving in there—is he turning full somersaults, or just stretching his arms and legs? And how much are his movements related to my own? Does he kick when I am putting too much pressure on the side where he is curled? Is he rocked and thus soothed when I am active? Does he grow hungry when I am hungry, or is the transference of nutrients not so direct? There is so much that is a mystery to me, so many questions I could ask of my midwife, and yet only so much time to find out the answers before another few months—and new stages of development-- have flown by.

It’s hard to believe I’m nearing the end of my second trimester, soon to enter the final stretch of preparation for birth and for HUGE LIFE CHANGES-- not to mention entering that physical stage where things start to get more uncomfortable.

I am so grateful for the time I have had during this pregnancy to read, to write, and to ponder this great unfolding mystery. I know that most pregnant women don’t have this luxury, and instead must carry the usual stresses of work and home at the same time that their bodies go through so many cycling surges of joy, fear, worry, awe, and excitement. I wish that all pregnant women could take the time to go into personal retreat, or to at least take as much time to pay attention and listen to their emotions as they do to thinking about practicalities like procuring baby supplies, maternity leave, and childcare.

For what other event do we go through that is as momentous and life-altering as giving birth? Death—of a loved one, or our own—is the only equivalent I can think of. Yet with death, so often we are less prepared for its arrival; even if we rationally know it will come, only in the most opportune situations do we have the emotional and spiritual presence to openly honor and welcome it.

In childbirth, a part of us also dies as we give birth. Pam England and Rob Horowitz write in Birthing from Within: “The mounting intensity of labor forces complete surrender of our body and will, dissolving our egos, ideas, and familiar sense of self. We’re not afraid of dying because there is no “self” left to resist and fear. At that transcendent moment we have become birth itself. This is the spiritual birth of woman into mother.”

I am soon to become a mother. In some ways, this feels like the most natural role I could possibly prepare for, and I trust that so much will come intuitively. In other respects, my husband and I have so much to learn and get ready for. We need to go to childbirth classes, as well as classes in breastfeeding and newborn care. We need to decide where our baby will sleep, what kind of diapers we will use, and where we will fit all the baby gear into our tiny one-bedroom cabin. We need to figure out how much unpaid time off my husband can afford to take (after his one paid week of paternity leave is over), and who we can count on to help us with meals and care in the weeks that follow the birth. We need to write a birth plan that outlines our wishes (although this seems less pressing now that we’ve made the choice to give birth at home), and I need to practice my squats and Kegels (squeezing the pelvic muscles to help prepare for birth), get plenty of exercise, eat enough protein and ingest all the necessary nutrients-- do all I can to prepare for a healthy baby and smooth labor.

I also need (want) to secure a book deal for my old completed manuscript, and make as much progress as possible on my new writing project, because I know that whatever I don’t complete before the baby is born will have to be put on hold for some time. I want to honor my writing projects and life as much as possible in this sweet spacious time I have right now, for I know that it will be a long time before I ever have this kind of stretched out time to myself again.

In short, I have plenty to think about and do, even without formal employment. And this list doesn’t even touch the emotional preparation that my husband and I are going through, that is slowly building in intensity. In January, we will go to our birthing class, a class that will not only teach us about coping with labor pain, but will also encourage us to journal and make birth art, to prepare for our new lives with a focus and intention that is more rooted in the spiritual, and less in the planning/worrying brain. And soon we will also go on a “babymoon,” or at least take a couple long weekends to be alone together in nature, away from our normal routines, acknowledging what is ahead of us, and saying goodbye to what we will be leaving behind.

I want to make sure that we take the time to make ritual. I’ve heard that the period following a birth is one of the most common times for marital issues to arise, and I want to make sure that we do everything we can right now to honor our partnership-- as a couple, the two of us—- as well as what it means that we are already becoming more than just the two of us, as we begin to welcome this new being.

My husband likes to joke that “our lives are over” and anticipate the birth of our child with an “Oh, shit!” tone, especially when talking to others. When I question why he must always give more weight to expressing the fearful side of things as opposed to expressing the excitement and awe that I know he also feels, he corrects himself “our lives as we know it,” thus softening the drama of his claim. Though I know it is healthy to openly express our fears, I want to encourage him to also practice affirming the trust that we will be capable and passionate parents, fueled in new ways we can only imagine even as we will surely be worn by exhaustion. And although my husband has not spent as much time contemplating birth as I have, I can see in his eyes his shifting awareness when I say things about "our baby" who becomes more real each day; and I can hear it in his voice each time he puts his hand on my belly and exclaims how “trippy” it is. The other night when I was spooning my husband, my belly against his back, he finally had to turn around because the baby was moving so much he couldn’t fall asleep.

All in all, my second trimester has been gentle and sweet. I stopped feeling nauseous long ago, I’ve had plenty of energy, and I feel so much more grounded in this whole process. Once we decided where to give birth and I chose a midwife whom I trusted, I could finally relax into the pregnancy, knowing that there was plenty of time to soak in everything else I’d need to know. “That’s why they give you nine months,” a friend said. Indeed.

This is my time-- to be present, to dream, to write, to stay open. To dwell as much as possible in a place of awe and awareness, good health and good energy. To prepare for the birth of my child, and the birth of myself, as a mother. To prepare for the passing of one phase, and to welcome the coming of another.

Into the great fathomless unknown, we plunge. Let us plunge with steady breath and open eyes, my dear, for once we arrive on the other side, we may quickly forget that there was ever another.