The Mess of Sunlight and Shadows
Every early spring, before the snow leaves, flyers startappearing around my mailbox and near my front door. They are from tree services. One look at my lot causes any self-respecting, green-lawn-loving suburbanite a rush of shame and any aspiring, hungry tree-trimmer to lick his chops.
I bought this lot 19 years ago for the trees. Glorious maples spanned all four corners. Huge canopies, explosion of green, privacy, quiet, and lots of wood. Many of these trees were planted in the 1880’s and are now coming to the end of their natural lifespan. I had to work through some powerfully uneasy feelings – taking down so many beautiful, majestic trees to build my dwelling. Maples also have incredibly sensitive and interconnected root systems so a delicate equilibrium had formed throughout my entire lot. Not only did I have to take down numerous trees in their entirety, but digging my house’s foundation would likely injure all of them. I struggled to accept my footprint.
So I made a silent promise to these trees. I would honor them and advocate for them and I would shepherd over their natural and unnatural demise. The 17 trees I had to take down, I milled up into boards. I used many in the construction of my house and have given many others to various woodworkers who promised to create beautiful things. For the remaining trees, I promised to let them fall gracefully, to let them return to the natural order of things. I promised to admire their beauty even through the unruly disorder of their demise. This means I have varying stages of life and death scattered throughout my lot – fallen trees, fallen branches, visual chaos littered everywhere. I have the regrowth and saplings and adolescents trees reaching skyward, vying for the sunlight amongst the remaining giants.
This morning I sit here, looking out my windows upon this wooden chaos. The snow makes the starkness, disorder, and asymmetry even more apparent. I am writing my next book and am currently in a snag. The writing is generally going well but ‘going well’ means weathering places of uncomfortable disorder, places where nothing is being written and feelings of hopelessness and futility descend. These are hard places that a writer learns to survive. They require acts of faith, the ability to transcend one’s wishes for how the writing should go and see the beauty within the chaos and disorder.
So yes I am getting flyers from tree-cutters. And yes, my suburban neighbors roll their eyes and wonder why I do not inflict more order upon my lot. But I know the scene out my window is beautiful. It is the scene of creating, the starkness and disorder before life opens. I have faith that spring is coming. The see the mess of sunlight and shadows that my wooden lot causes upon the glistening snow. I know that green and lushness and the singing of birds are around the corner. I know that beautiful green leaves will cover up the chaos that must lie underneath. I know that all of it, in its entirely, is beautiful.
My writing continues.