As a timid five-year old,
I stood pigeon-toed and with a reverence so fierce and fearful I nearly quivered.
Grandpa sat beside me in his huge wheelchair at the head of his driveway; this
was the exact same shady spot he asked to be parked in every single day of
every long, hot, and humid New Jersey summer. Stretching out above us were
impossibly huge trees and my intellectual grandfather pointed them out using
labels: “maple” and “oak.” He sent me to retrieve a leaf sample of each. Maple leaves are like your hand, with five
parts. Oak leaves, do you see?, have a longer, narrow shape with ruffled edges
like the dress you wore to your uncle’s wedding.
In those summer seasons, trees became nameable and identifiable.
Every childhood drawing I made had trees ripe with
fruit or leaves.
We had a small stand of
trees on the corner of the lot on which I grew up. For some reason, we called
them “the bushes.” It was an amazing nature place in a neighborhood barely
dotted with trees but filled with over-dry lawns and straights strips of sidewalks
with asphalt streets turning everything into right angles. There was an entry
into our private grove through which I could slip my soil-and-solitude-craving
body and lie down on a branch, or bounce on a limb, or simply crouch…concealed.
It was my safe, quiet secret with a spyhole out on the world through the
negative space between the leaves.
In those spring through autumn seasons, trees
became a haven.
Written for Tulpehaking Nature Center’s Arbor Day
Benefit 2016: Rooted, Performance Salon
All blog images created & photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: "©2016 JenniferJWilhoit/TEALarbor stories. AllRightsReserved."
