I’m still reading Pursig’s ‘Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’. Here’s a quick excerpt that has inspired my yarn for today:

“You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it’s going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt,” (151).

I received a call the other day from a tree owner that claimed his tree was dead and that he wanted me to look at it, and give him a price.

“Ok,” I said. “I’m coming up Swallow Street now. I’ll be there in two minutes.”

“I have a red Toyota, and you can’t miss the dead tree, it’s right in front of the house,” he said.

As I rounded the turn and came down the street slowly, I spotted it, about 35 feet in height, not such an enormously spreading crown, and certainly leafless. I pulled into a parking spot before reaching the tree and jumped out of the truck. The homeowner was already outside, waiting nervously.

We introduced ourselves and made some small talk but I was hardly paying attention to him or the connection to the referral, as the tree had all my interest now.

At the base, the asphalt crept up the root flare. There was a large cavity with some woundwood. I thought of ocean waves crashing onto a black, empty beach. Old scars and medium aged scars, like continents surrounded by the sea told me that somehow piracy was involved. Live cells were still growing, even here, on the death star. Trees are amazing like that, still being able to flourish with nothing left on the inside.

My eyes wandered up the trunk, to the main branch union. Not the best angle for major branches to be attached, but no alarming separation or active failure. A sigh of relief. But I wondered if it needed a cable. Like if it really needed one, or if I might just sell that as a service to drive up the cost, and most importantly, the profit. I have a lot of cable I need to get rid of. It almost makes me feel guilty. The cable, the decay, all of it.

At the ends of every single branch were buds, swelled up like they just finished bi’s and tri’s at the gym and guzzled down a post-workout mix of auxin and were in the mirror flexing and pumping and flexing and pumping.

“This tree definitely isn’t dead,” I said to the homeowner. “It just hasn’t leafed out yet. Was it in leaf last year?”

“Yes it was, that’s why I thought it was dead when I didn’t see any leaves.”

“Yea, you know trees respond to their environments in many different…” and I faded off as the homeowner listened intently.

I was thinking about how old this tree must be. A Horsechestnut! I wondered about how many pests and diseases it has fought off over its many years of defying the odds here at this address. Location, location, location. How many people has it dazzled with it’s flower spikes. I thought about the paving crew that tamped the asphalt tight and neat against the root flare, like smearing hot glue on your ankles and letting it slowly cool. I thought about one of those pretty white flower pedals falling through the air, and hitting the hot pavement and incinerating like a love letter just above a lit match.

More so than anything though, I thought about what it is I could do for this tree. What was it, after living such a long life of real neglect, and of real courage, right here on the street corner, right in front of everyone watching every single day, this poor tree naked and not afraid, being everyone’s drunken bumper party weekend after weekend.

“Go ahead, tell him what you’re gonna do,” my conscience taunted me.

Well I could peel back the asphalt from the flare, mulch, maybe do some reduction pruning on those taller portions of crown reaching toward the house, a little clearance around the wires. Oh yea, and the cable, what about that? Maybe a brace rod. Maybe some soil amendments. Horticultural oil? Oh, I know! Maybe I can call that person with the compost tea for a drench after everything has been taken care of! And some injections!

Then I was sad again.

It’s not even leafed out yet.

What if it dies next year?

Then I thought about another bumper, another paving crew, another white pedal blackening in the darkness of the future.

“So what do you think,” the tree owner probed.

“I’m going to take some pictures, and think about for a while, and get back to you.”