A tree in its solitude
Just look up
This year’s writing routine has consisted of me spending weeks focusing on a single piece of writing. Obsessing over every little detail. Not being able to concentrate on much else. Ripping my hair out. Attacking the spots on my face. Mostly because I want my writing to be a reflection of my best thoughts and simultaneously be interesting to read.
Then once I finish the piece I’ll give myself a break from my laptop for what is meant to be a couple days, but turns into weeks. My confidence drops again. I start over-analysing without actually writing anything. Because if I don’t write anything down, there is nothing to judge, nothing to critique. I live in a comfortable state of blissful ignorance. It’s not everyday that I’m going to write something that I am 100% proud off. Half the time I can’t even read a finished piece back without feeling like insects are crawling under my skin and making their way into my brain. Bleurgh. I think that’s normal right?
I started writing again this year after wanting to for ages but not knowing where to start, so comparing myself to writers who have been doing this for years isn’t gonna do anyone any good. Not to get all ‘new years resolutions blah blah blah’ but I do want to focus on becoming more fluid with my writing, accepting whatever thoughts and emotions want to be explored with less overthinking. Also I want to use the word ‘ephemeral’ at some point. It’s that thing where I saw the word for the first time and researched the meaning, and now I keep seeing it everywhere. I like it.
Anyway, here’s something I wrote a while back. Apparently I’m passionate about trees.
My family moved into my current house when I was eleven. After, I did the usual - walked around the whole house inhaling the gorgeous smell of fresh paint and measured the size of my new room with my feet - I went to the garden. To my surprise, there was a tree. It was in the neighbour’s garden and I remember thinking what’s it doing here? It looked so out of place. This huge being just standing among a quilt of fences and dry patches of grass.
It was the kind of tree that looks like it belongs in a forest, as a part of a conglomeration of others like it’s kind, ready to bear its fruit and shelter to the woodland creatures. It didn’t belong here. And people knew that.
Over the years, countless neighbor’s have moved into the house with the tree, and time after time, they complained about it’s nature.
First the couple who were expecting a baby and ending up moving abroad.
‘It drops too many leaves’ they would say.
Then the family that had about ten kids that would run up and down the stairs all day long.
‘It attracts too many squirrels’, the father complained to someone on the phone.
And lastly my favourite, the couple who had random visitors coming in and out the house at 3am moaned, ‘It’s just…there’
That sounds like a YOU problem I wanted to blurt out every time I heard such a complaint. Your literally just describing what a tree is, babe.
I started noticing other misplaced trees in residential areas. Trees that deserved better. Singular pine trees in people’s front garden’s, an oak tree on the side of the pavement for people to walk around (because what a nuisance!). I wonder who chose to keep just the one tree there, if once upon a time there was a forest of trees where a landowner decided to chop down all but one to decorate the square of grass they now called home. (Okay, this is me just being naive, the tree was most probably planted by an occupant or the council or something).
It’s coming to the end of September now. The time of year where the world feels anew. The air is just a little bit chillier, nipping at my nose and flushing my cheeks, but the sun still shines bright. Well, at least for today. The only thing is, the tree has started to shed and the complaints are coming in again. Leaves and seeds decorating the gardens a mustard yellow. This might just well be it’s last autumn.
I woke up to the news that the landlords have decided to come together and cut the tree down - the roots had started to lift the grass on one of the neighbouring gardens. Apparently following nature’s course is an inconvenience. Adapting for the seasons, not seen as an evidence of continuity. No matter how many families have moved in and out, the tree remains. How cruel to get rid of something that is just making itself present.
Growing up, the tree used to scare me when there were thunderstorms. I had seen in the news that somewhere else in the country, one had fallen onto someone’s house and killed the people inside. My eyes did not close that night. I just stared out of my window at the ominous silhouette swinging side to side, waiting for me to fall asleep so it could fall into my room, crushing the only person who had appreciated it. How unfortunate and ironic.
When the sun’s out, the tree takes it’s cue and performs. The grandness of it’s trunk bursting into the blue sky, soaking it’s leaves with gleams of sunlight. I see sparrows converse on it’s branches; butterflies suckle on it’s flowers. A sweet symphony sounds when the wind travels in to the sequence. When I find it hard to write, I come and sit here.
And that’s what I did today. I overestimated the warmth from the September sun, and I’m freezing my tits off, but as long as I look up at the illuminated leaves, my body feels a teeny tiny bit warmer.
Today on the day of it’s pronounced death, I learnt it’s name. Sycamore.
Thank you for reading!
iris mora <3