My grandmother had a magnificent one that dominated her
front yard. It was an alpine wonder: a mountainous blue evergreen straight out
of a fairy tale forest with ancient, droopy boughs and an air of wisdom and
permanence. I once hazarded a hero’s quest through its prickly bowers with some
of the kids from her block, and inside we found a hidden fort
carpeted in old needles. That was the first time I realized magic sometimes
hides right out in the open. All we have to do is know where to look.
There’s a tree near here—a rare old mimosa that changes
drastically in every season and takes up most of a corner lot, but it’s so
enormous and exotically shaped that it might as well be a lone tree on an
African savanna. I don’t drive by it often, but when I do I always check to
make sure it’s still there. Because life just wouldn’t be right without touches
of the unexpected like that.
But the one I always think of this time of year was
outstanding in more ways than one. It was a towering old sassafras that
appeared suddenly after a curve. In fall it would go from being merely majestic
to being majestic and red. When I rounded the corner, it would suddenly pop in all
its startling cranberry-colored glory. When I slowed my car—as this tree
invariably made me do—I could see those vibrant little mitten-leaves waving in
the chilly air.
When they tore it down for the new highway, I mourned. That
was several years ago, and I still mourn whenever I make that turn.
Do you have a tree you worship?
Mr. Darcy: There was one very
fine tree [in Lambton] that I remember.
Mrs. Gardner: On the green! By the
smithy!
Mr. Darcy: The very one.
~Pride and Prejudice, 1995 BBC version, adapted
by Andrew Davies from the Jane Austen novel of the same name
