The Trees and Me: A Tragic Love Story

My DTR with trees. TLDR: I am simultaneously lover and enemy of the trees.

As per usual this Christmas my favorite gift was one I gifted myself.

(No shade on my loved ones, I just happen to be the leading expert on how to please myself.)

I gifted myself a 3 day solo vacation to Seattle on the tail end of my kids' Christmas break.

I supped and savored every single second of that trip like a fine dessert.

Oh the deliciousness of alone time to a mom of 4 children!

It was heaven.

Really the only thing I wanted from the trip was some quality time with yummy food and a good book.

Yummy food: check. Good book: check.

My choice of book was important.

Only the best would do for such an opulent occasion.

And fortunately for me, I had the very best book:

The Overstory by Richard Powers.

Have you read it? Good God its incredible right?! I mean, right?!?!

Pulitzer Prize and book of the year well deserved!

I knew from the first chapter that this was to be a very special read.

I couldn't just read it in bed. I would reserve it for special locales like a bubble bath or a fancy coffee shop.

It's a novel about trees and people who discover their love for them. People whose love for the trees cause them to fight for them.

It's equal part celebration and tragedy.

It follows the stories of a psychology professor studying tree huggers, a scientist fired for publishing that trees talk to each other, a hermit artist obsessed with a chestnut tree, a college druggie suddenly called to speak for the trees, an engineer turned activist after they cut down the trees outside her office, a soldier turned employee of a logging company, a lawyer/actor couple sanctioned for keeping their yard wild and a Silicon Valley programer who made billions on a video game based on trees.

Their stories all weave together and apart throughout the novel.

If anyone asks me what my favorite book is, my new answer is The Overstory.

Along with the investment of engaging plot lines and the delight of beautiful poetic prose, there was another feeling pulsing along with my reading.

The sensation was relief.

I love the trees, but I fumble with expressing their urgent significance. I also frequently tire of their significance and scroll Pinterest instead. I'm no Lorax. Still, it felt like relief to meet my own struggles, longings and hopelessness as a lover of trees in such a popular book, in such capable hands.

I felt the relief of kinship as I read.

Allow me the privilege of liberally sprinkling Overstory quotes throughout this essay. Much obliged.

“If we could see green, we’d see a thing that keeps getting more interesting the closer we get. If we could see what green was doing, we’d never be lonely or bored. If we could understand green, we’d learn how to grow all the food we need in layers three deep, on a third of the ground we need right now, with plants that protected one another from pests and stress. If we knew what green wanted, we wouldn’t have to choose between the Earth’s interests and ours. They’d be the same.”

……………………

As I came home from my Seattle trip high on tree love, I grabbed the mail on the way in. I was reading this notice before I even took off my coat:

cue

*crying emoji. *skeleton emoji. *broken heart emoji

The love and light of my life - my bluff trails. (I said what I said). My happy place. The very best, most beautiful trailhead ruined, kept from us for the building of 32 condos.

I can't.

I'm still in deep grief over it.

The condos would go right where I stood to take this picture, blocking off the trails from this trailhead.

Add it to the pile of my growing Spokane tree griefs:

• This sign of this golf course near our home:

"Private property for member golfers only.

Jogging, hiking, biking, football and skiing expressly prohibited.

$250 reward”

Gatekeeping the trees for the rich. Penalties awarded not for the cutting of the trees for the golf paths, not for over fertilizing and over watering, not for destroying the natural ecosystem, but for enjoying the trees without paying.

• Two of the most beautiful mature ponderosa pines in my next door neighbor's yard were recently torn down to avoid damaging human property.

I cried watching them saw them down limb by limb.

It was these two tall beauties behind the fence.

“What conveys a right, and why should humans, alone on all the planet, have them?”

I can't help thinking it would be easier to break up with the trees. Go steady with comfort, convenience and apathy instead.

To love trees in the 21st century is to live in a state of continuous heartbreak.

In The Overstory, the scientist wants to create a seed bank. In making her case to the powers that be (ie the bank) she says,

"There are half as many trees in the world as there were before we came down out of them.... One percent of the world forest, every decade. An area larger than Connecticut, every year..... A third to a half of existing species may go extinct by the time I’m gone..... Tens of thousands of trees we know nothing about. Species we’ve barely classified. Like burning down the library, art museum, pharmacy, and hall of records, all at once.”

"We’re cashing in a billion years of planetary savings bonds and blowing it on assorted bling.”

.....................

It can be helpful to have a cause beyond yourself. To serve, to love.

Leaving Mormonism left a big, wide hole of purpose and service in my life, ripe for the filling.

There are no shortages of worthy human causes to be sure.

But the more I study history, the more slippery that line between "right side" and "wrong side" becomes. Or "right ways" and "wrong ways" of dealing with a worthy problem. It can flip on a dime. Our puny human minds, bless them, are so very easily taken over by group think and ego and fundamentalism. Every one of us throughout history convinced our human causes are the right ones, making enemies of our human siblings and making ourselves miserable in the process.

I don't know if I trust my mind, fresh from a life of group think mind control to join another human cause.

But I trust trees. I know they are good, holy and worth fighting for. Even if the fight is doomed and tragic and full of heartbreak.

…………………………..

But wait. Who is it I'm fighting anyway? Who is the enemy of trees?

Humans are.

I am.

The buyer of a 3-story house, round-the-world flights, bathroom repairs, gas, shoes, notebooks and all things with tags.

I'm absolutely dripping in tree blood.

I am simultaneously lover of trees and enemy of trees.

Perhaps not enemy #1 (looking at you all corporations), but still, I make demands of the corporations and they provide me my assorted bling. From the trees’ perspective, I'm behind enemy lines to be sure.

………………………

I can't help but think that The Good Place was right when the show discovered that every single human's heaven points were in the red before good/bad deeds were even tallied- based solely on each person's environmental impact on this planet.

Damned before we even try.

Hmm.

That sounds familiar.

I grew up believing that humanity was damned. A sinful, prideful bunch, and yet, a loving God thought to come down and save us from our sins. Even so, we killed him too.

And yet, on his death bed, this Savior forgave all- even those who destroyed him.

“A tree is a wondrous thing that shelters, feeds, and protects all living things. It even offers shade to the axmen who destroy it."

A savior who even in death, offered life.

“For there is hope of a tree, if it goes down, that it will sprout again, and that its tender branches will not cease. Though the root grows old in the earth, and the stock dies in the ground, at the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs."

We are made in his image, share the same parentage.

“You and the tree in your backyard come from a common ancestor. A billion and a half years ago, the two of you parted ways. But even now, after an immense journey in separate directions, that tree and you still share a quarter of your genes. . . .”

Who even after ignoring him, despising him, killing him, a savior who delights in comforting us.

“Trees know when we are close by. The chemistry of their roots and the perfumes of their leaves pump out change when we're near...when you feel good after a walk in the woods, it may be that certain species are bribing you”

Undeserved, unearned love.

I no longer believe in a God in the sky who sent his damned children a savior.

But if I had to pick a savior, trees might not be such a bad option.

And what do I owe my green savior offering undeserved love?

A life spent in ransack and ashes? Living in shame, guilt and fear of my sins that can never be fully repaid?

If I learned anything from my time with my former savior, it’s that living in fear, shame and guilt of my own sins is no way to live.

………………….

Last year I read Robin Killmer's brilliant memoire Braiding Sweetgrass. In it, she poses the question for all the bounty our earth generously gifts us- what could we possibly offer in return?

Her answer?

Gratitude.

Gratitude for what we have. Gratitude for the earth.

"Puh. that's it?!" I thought (looking to her as I used to look to apostles for the answer to clear my conscience).

So paltry. So insignificant.

But.

In a society whose primary belief and value system is founded on capitalism--a machine whose cogs churn on the motor of an insatiable desire for more..…….. gratitude is an act of rebellion.

Saying, "That's enough. I have enough. I'm happy with what I have. I don't need more house, more convenience, more indulgence, more stuff. I'll be stepping off the hamster wheel of more now. Thank you, I have all I need."

79% of Americans believe more money will make them happier.

Gratitude may well be rebellion.

Radical rebellion.

…………………..

Currently I’m reading a book called The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Greene. Before I doomsday-ed too hard, John Green offered some much appreciated perspective, 

“Humans are a threat to our own species and to many others, but the planet will survive us. In fact, it may only take life on Earth a few million years to recover from us. Life has bounced back from far more serious shocks. Two hundred and fifty million years ago, during the Permian extinction, ocean surface waters likely reached 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Ninety-five percent of Earth's species went extinct, and for five million years afterward, Earth was a "dead zone" with little expansion of life. 

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid impact caused a dust cloud so huge that darkness may have pervaded Earth for two years, virtually stopping photosynthesis and leading to the extinction of 75 percent of land animals. Measured against these disasters, we're just not that important. When Earth is done with us, it'll be like, 'Well, that Human Pox wasn't great, but at least I didn't get Large Asteroid Syndrome."

Yes, we are destroying our world. Yes, humans can be just the worst, but as John Green reminded me- we also created Diet Dr. Pepper, cave art, Auld Lang Syne and Super Mario Kart, so ya know, we’re not all bad.

Also to hate the enemy of trees is to hate myself and most people on the earth.

And I don’t want to hate myself or most people on the earth.

And so

I suppose I’ll continue on pursuing the beautiful, hopeless tragedy it is to be a lover of the trees

and of those who cut them down.

…………………..

What about you? Have you read The Overstory? What is your DTR with the trees? 1-10 where are you on the “humanity is the worst/humanity is the best” scale?