Quercus
Since
moving here, I've taken to regarding you every day and at many different moments
during the course of each day. At nightfall, I glance in your direction, mindful
that you are still there, though I've lost sight of you.
Maybe you remind me of where I came from, and the things I was used to.
I shall call you "Quercus," as the encyclopedia identifies you as
"Quercus virginianus."
I have known many trees in my life, Quercus, but you are my first live oak.
"I think that I shall never see another spreading chestnut tree."
The elms have gone, disease their foe. I'm glad "oaks from small acorns
grow."
You ARE beautiful, yet, beneath that stately symmetry, I'll wager you're just
as focused on staying alive as the rest of us. Of course you are; you're just
as busy being, as we are doing.
You know, we humans tend to drive ourselves nuts in the pursuit of a nice
niche. In case you're not familiar with the term, Quercus, a niche is a suitable
and satisfying place in the scheme of things. You have a niche too, Quercus,
but since you're a Dendron, the whole thing spells out differently. In this,
you were born with a silver spoon in your stem. For you, it is ordained as
follows:
Rooted in the lessons of your ancestral environment, you've been designed
to unfold in an orderly fashion utilizing a centered-layered style that takes
you (start to finish) from the inside out. You've got an ingredient called
cambium, Quercus, which is sort of like a change engine. Without you so much
as having to lift a leaf, it takes you where you're supposed to go. You also
have a kind of, shall we say, "wisdom." You "know" not
to over-extend yourself or branch out too much lest you sap your strength.
Your instructions, insofar as fulfilling your genetic legacy is concerned,
are basically to "BE."
Don't get me wrong, Quercus, I have the utmost respect and gratitude for the
things you tree fellows do for the environment and for life itself, but we
are talking basics here; the why and wherefore of existence--yours and mine!
Like, just what exactly are we here for? Never thought about it, have you?
As I've said, Quercus, your organic destiny decrees that you do by being (we'll
get into all that Photosynthesis stuff some other time, if you don't mind;
I'm trying to make another point here). I'm talking now about your essential
completeness, which relieves you from the endless complications of awareness,
angst, and self-deception, just to name a few foibles of the Homo sapiens,
which, by the way, is the term by which my kind is referred to in the encyclopedia.
We are all placed in the great here and now to continue the species; it's
virtually all about eggs (or in your case, seeds, but let's not clutter the
concept). Eggs, then, are the bottom-line . . . no my leafy Lancelot--not
the eggs laid by those fluttering, winged-vertebrate with which you are well
familiar, but the ovarian kind that get activated after one of our species
is laid.
And you know, Quercus, when all is said and done, you and I are but, "creatures
of a day." Okay, your "day" lasts longer than ours . . . you
get centuries, while we're handed a mere handful of years, but that is away
from the main idea, which is that organic history unfolds in the milieu of
the moment, just as it always has. The agenda remains the same, "Bring
forth fruit!" The bottom line has changed not one iota, Quercus . . .
not one! Just as your agenda hasn't questioned itself from ancient time to
now. The name of the game is to keep the game going, going, going, going,
going, going, going, going, goi . . . (or in my case, talking talking talking
talking . . . .)
Listen, I was walking the beach one night just before darkness descended.
Out of the sea lumbered a giant sea turtle, which then slowly made her way
to a spot in the sand far from the water. She dug a hole in the sand and laid
her eggs. Exhausted, she then, nevertheless, inch by inch, made her way back
to the surf and swam away.
Turtles get off easy; they have all that swimming to do but nothing long-term.
It lies with us "higher" forms to dream up the notion that it takes
a village.
That's cause our brains take so long to develop. And you, my majestic monarch
of field and forest . . . YOU need only curl up and contain yourself for a
time as that tiny, little nut nestled ever so snug in your wee-woody cup and
wait for your acorn agenda to do the rest. Pretty easy, providing, of course,
that some squirrel doesn't knock you out of the running while you're still
in the quaint little nut mode.
Your destiny it is, Quercus, (barring acts of Mother Nature, Father time,
Dame fortune and who ever else is on the committee), to grow in perfect proportion
on either side so, that, as you advance in years, you take on a majesty, allowing
you to relinquish your superiority of form to no other deciduous contender.
Well, it's been really nice talking to you, Quercus. You're a great listener,
but you might loosen up a bit. Now, when my husband comes home from work,
I'll be able to tell him that I had a nice conversation with a local who happens
to live nearby. You see, he worries about me out here alone all day; says
I need to get out more and interact. This should reassure him some, I imagine.
Course, he'll want to know a little more about you in passing, which is his
way of encouraging more socialization on my part and that sort of thing.
So I'll come up with a character sketch entwined with a little local history
to fill the bill. Like, you're an individual whose roots go way back (and
probably well under the house) and that you happen to be in the family business
of growing nuts. (We had a president twenty years ago about whom one could
say the same thing.) I'll conclude with the observation that one detects a
certain rigidity of character structure and that probably, in the long run,
this new acquaintance will turn out to be a stick in the mud.
Originally
written for and appeared in The Courage
of our Confusion