One Little Elephant

“You’re going to regret planting all those trees.”

She stands before the floor to ceiling windows that march across the back of my house, looking past the stretch of lawn to the dense stand of greenery beyond. It’s a ritual, this Condemning of the Trees, repeated each time she visits. I say nothing, forever bewildered at her inability to savor the dignified majesty of the oak, the colorful flirtatiousness of the crepe myrtle, the gentle serenity of the redbud, and the mysterious promise of wondrous autumn color secreted away in the green leaves of the maple and elm.

Blue jays and cardinals dart between the birdfeeder and birdbath. Their smaller less flashy cousins flit among the trees, alert for a chance to dive in for a bath or a meal when the more aggressive fellows are distracted.

She scowls at the trees, the birds that ornament them, and the beagles that loll in lazy comfort beneath their shade. “If one of those trees falls it’ll damage the house. Then you’ll be sorry.”

Again I say nothing, thinking of the mighty twin oaks felled by a spring storm last year. They missed the house, but as my husband said as we stood in the yard together grieving them, he could have fixed the house. Eighty year old trees are harder to replace.

“Trees are trouble,” she states firmly, then wanders away from the window. I sigh, relieved that the ritual of the Condemning of the Trees is nearly over.

She’d once had trees in her own yard, some even larger than my twin oaks. But after her husband died she’d removed them, one after another, glowing with relief as each was cut down, smiling with satisfaction as its dissected trunk was hauled away, its glorious branches fed to a shredder. I remained silent. Her yard is none of my business. But her elation at the sterile expanse of grass remaining baffled me.

When the trees were no more she removed the bushes and flowers as well, razing the flower beds.

Time passed and she began to complain about her neighbors' trees, fretting over their very existence, annoyed that each autumn her large fenced yard, now unprotected by a tree canopy, became a collecting basin for the leaves falling and blowing from the suburban forest beyond her fence. The leaves blanketed the grass like multi-colored snow, inches deep in some places. They piled in yellow and orange drifts against her shed. It was the one time of year her yard looked pretty. To me.

“Trees,” she says reproachfully as she settles on my couch, her back firmly to the glorious display beyond the window.

I take a seat facing the birds and beagles and beauty. And we talk about subjects on which we can agree.

So what does this little tale have to do with writing? Each person has their own version of what is pleasing, beautiful, and nurturing to them. Create for yourself, from yourself, what is pleasing to you. Share it with those who appreciate it. Don’t be disconcerted by those who do not.

Something that’s helping me write today: the coo of mourning doves.