the day before the world changed, when I had already cast my vote for and was riding high on my confidence in a First Woman President, contractors came to cut our leafless sickly red maple street tree down to logs down to stump, and one contractor looked at me, excited, and said: "Vote for Trump!" The city arborist recommended (yes, the city has an arborist! a small mustachioed man named Bower who one often sees staring at trees consternated) the katsura. "it has slender branches," he said and what a sales pitch! what other criteria should we use, to discern among two pages of pictureless, descriptionless common and latin names? we went with katsura. convinced our neighbors, four doors north, fellow dead-red-maple havers, to choose likewise. filled the forms, sent the check, waited the months. and one day, unannounced, while we were out, the crew came. mulched the stump, planted the sapling, gave the lesson: fill the water bag weekly, for a year. maybe two. Katya, we named her. Katya Katsura. May she grow as tall, as old, as grand as the oak across the street. So imagine our horror when her branches started falling! Causes most unnatural; clean cuts with shears! One branch this day; days later: another! Over and over, someone with malintent and proper tools harming our baby! only— she grew taller? less eye-pokey, more sun-reachy? over the roofline in just a few years? brighter green leaves than the four-doors-north neighbors' (though maybe that's because of the shade from the tree in between) The street trees in Barcelona are great vaulted ceilings, first branches appearing at the roofline, it must be, of my city's short buildings. Their octogon blocks make every intersection a diamond-shaped parklet, and trees bloom over like great living umbrellas. Many crews, I'd wager, earn their keep keeping them pruned. This year, this season, Season of Trees Poke Eyes, I became my old nemesis. Catalyzed by a stabby bush of a tree, neighbors doing the limbo to make it past. Pruning shears in fanny pack, I headed out. Morning run interrupted, punctuated, enlivened six, seven, eight times to chop a tree up to size. Man with a trash can, volunteering, de-littering cemetery's border, binned my smaller tossed red bud branches, and asked if I was with the North East Neighbors. No, I said. Unaffiliated. He thanked me. They always mean to get to this sooner. Older woman, walking dog, thanked me. I'm visually impaired, she said. And sometimes the branches poke me in the eyes. I'm not visually impaired, I said. And sometimes the branches poke me in the eyes. She chit-chatted while I pruned and a man came out of the bottle shop and told me off. We prune our own trees! He said. Ok, I said. And put my shears away. Vandalism? Or care? You can too. Dear tree neighbors: I will help your reputation with the humans. I will guide you away from cars, from eyes, from carried children's eyes. I will help you reach toward the light. Dear human neighbors: if you do not have the time the tools the confidence to prune your own trees: I got you. It takes a village to raise a tree. Let's vault these ceilings. The world didn't change all at once that day. It grew shoot by shoot, branch by branch, and me, walking past, over and over, oblivious, until it poked me in the eye. It's time to grab your shears. Stop waiting for permission. We've got pruning to do.
"Season of Trees Poke Eyes" -- perfect
Really enjoyed this, Chad. We do, indeed, have pruning to do.
Thanks! Is it also Season of Trees Poke Eyes where you live?