We can live with it. But we miss it. Storms took down the huge tree across the street. As it fell our way, it flattened a car sitting on the street right outside the kitchen window and damaged the trees on our side of the boulevard. The top brushed the side of our house. Our largest tree probably saved us but now it looks sort of like a palm tree with all its branches stripped to the trunk. It’s been “condemned,” and soon the city will remove it. The other two were damaged and may also be cut down.
The sun now bakes the west side of Toad Hall and the light reveals peeling paint, dirty windows and a missing screen. Birds visiting my feeder on the second floor just outside my office left poop on the siding. I never noticed. Not charming. The inside feels hot, dark and gloomy in the afternoon. No more filtered green light. I often thank God for things I don’t want to take for granted just because I’m American and drive a Ford. Clean sheets, fresh vegetables, warm socks. Jesus.
Now add the trees that filled our gutters with seeds, dropped sticks and leaves on the lawn, pushed feeder roots into the sewer and swarmed with insects and birds. I never knew how much I preferred them to our neighbor’s crumbling foundation.
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8 comments:
New to your blog, my pastor recommended it...glad he did...you live in a house and neighborhood just like me...with roots in your sewer lines too, and a home that cannot escape the effects of the fall, like mine...and you do it so well! You are so transparent, i would let you in on my blog...a place where no stranger has ever gone, some of my friends have not been invited either--if i read your blog enough, i might go public too :-)
Anonymous, thank you for your comment. To be invited in by a stranger - or to rightly, wisely invite a stranger in - can be a warm hospitable thing to do.
So beautifully put, Margie!
Love that last paragraph. I'm tempted to show it to my neighbor, who was half joking, half complaining about our maple tree. (Granted, they do seem to drop a different sort of debris for each season.)
He's a wonderful neighbor, though. If I had to choose between him and the tree, the tree would go. Better add good neighbors to my 'Don't Take it for Granted' list.
Jason, thanks for your comment. It's taken a while to learn that while we're noting the neighbors' flaws, they see ours. I can say thank God I don't have THAT crumbling foundation, and they're lookin at our patchy weedy lawn. A metaphor here, huh? Loving our neighbor has many layers.
You know, if you still had that "No Parking" sign, that car may not have been parked outside your house! That guy should send the City a bill.
Greg Pitchford
Greg, I shorely agree!
I'll never forget the day I first arrived in Rochester. I was coming from Texas, and in contrast Rochester seemed a cool, green oasis, because of the massive trees overarching the streets.
Will the city replant your stricken trees, Margie?
Greg G., I hope they replant. The city still hasn't taken them down, but I'm sure they will. Don't know what they're replacing these days. The days of all the ash trees are numbered due to the coming of the ash borer. Sad.
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