Diana McCaulay, Contributor
I'M AT the Washington Park Arboretum, standing under a crab-apple tree for a ceremony on Tree Amnesty Day. Three adults wearing funny hats are officiating. One opens a bottle of non-alcoholic champagne, explaining with a smile that no alcohol is permitted in the Arboretum. The champagne is poured into glasses and the three officials turn and drink a toast to the crab-apple tree, which has been designated a heritage tree because of its unusual qualities. I reflect that if I organised a ceremony to drink a toast to a tree in Jamaica, I'd be summarily institutionalised.
The crab-apple tree is a large specimen, not particularly tall, but its branches spread out 60 feet in all directions. Apparently it was not planted deliberately, but owes its life to a random seed carried by a passing bird. The crab-apple is not ideally located, it's hemmed in by some cedars and it's close to the trail. Now it has a handsome stone plaque at its base proclaiming it a heritage tree and therefore unlikely to be cut down.
I'm doing a work internship at the Washington Park Arboretum, a large urban park in Seattle. I returned from Jamaica to find spring under way, but my initial impressions were of extreme sogginess. It was hard to get excited about blossoms while rain slid down the back of my neck and my boots leaked. Then I left again for the east coast where I encountered the cherry blossoms of Washington D.C. and wondered whether this spring business might be okay after all.
Over the years I've travelled in winter and autumn, but I'd not yet seen spring.
I returned to Seattle a week ago on a day of spectacular sunshine. I was groggy with jet lag and when I finally crawled into the back of an airport shuttle, all I wanted was a familiar bed. Beam me up Scotty, I thought, get me home fast.
Beauty
Gradually I realised the people in the shuttle were exclaiming about spring unfolding around us. So I looked. It really was awesome. The entire city was green; the trees were bursting with blossoms and tiny, frothy leaves. Birds were frantic in the shrubbery. At my front door, a small magnolia tree had blossomed and the large, waxy flowers waved in the breeze. (I had no idea it was a magnolia until it bloomed).
All along my street, families were spring cleaning, houses were being repainted, flowers planted, bushes trimmed. Wind chimes tinkled on front porches. Garbage pans were full, old furniture was left on sidewalks with paper signs saying: "Free".
One day while heading home carrying groceries, I saw a small filing cabinet with a "Free" sign on it. I was just a few yards away from my apartment, the cabinet was light, and I decided it would be just the thing for storing the reams of paper my time here has generated. I ran home and put the groceries inside the front door, but by the time I got back, the little cabinet had been claimed by someone else in a car. Just like robins fighting over an earthworm, I thought. Spring rituals.
Every morning I walk from the bus stop to the Arboretum. Some days have been wet, that's true. Now I overlook it; I wholeheartedly approve of spring. I walk along a short street of story-book cottages with swept front walks and gardens of daffodils and tulips, then along a path through the Arboretum, under towering conifers - I'm learning to tell a pine from a spruce from a fir - over a moss-covered foot bridge, past a wide, grassy walk lined with cherry trees. The cherry blossoms look like pink snow. I don't know the names of most things, but many trees are blooming, the undergrowth is dappled with wild flowers, and even the new leaves look like blossoms.
Teaching tool
I'm learning to use nature as a teaching tool for children. On the wettest, coldest day, we were introduced to the Waggle Dance - mimicking the flight of bees to show other bees the way to a particularly flower.
As I'm standing in the rain trying to get my frozen limbs to come to grips with the Waggle Dance, I feel the same sense of unreality I felt watching important people drink a toast to a tree. Why am I doing this, beauty notwithstanding?
I found the answer in a book about native American people. Here's what Chief Luther Standing Bear had to say: "...man's heart away from nature becomes hard; lack of respect for growing, living things soon leads to a lack of respect for humans too. Keep your youth close to nature's softening influence..."
Perhaps you WILL join me when I come home to drink a toast to some worthy tree.
Readers can e.mail Diana McCaulay at dmcaulay@u.washington.edu
