Tree Love

In one of my last posts, I wrote about my favorite trees and showed a picture of one of my little fir buddies. A lot of people have commented on what their favorite tree is, and Kerstin has gone onto drawing different trees for our 100 things project.

My relationship with trees in interesting when I think back onto it. As I've mentioned, I grew up in Brooklyn, New York - where we actually did have magnificent trees lining the streets. I was a very nearsighted child (my parents didn't figure this out until I was 10 - but that's another story) and because my world was circumscribed by what I could see, I tended to be dreamy and did a lot of reading. We all played outdoors in our cement courtyard - stoop ball and the like and I didn't interact with trees much aside from using them as bases for stick ball, and walking the dog near the tiny patch of green around the base of the tree. Google earth comes in handy to show a picture of our old apartment building. We actually did have more trees on the streets when I was a kid.

But I did spend time on the fire escape in our building which overlooked the wide avenue in front of the house. We lived on the fourth floor of the building and I would spend hours looking down into the leafy head of the street trees. I distinctly remember seeing a fuzzy, dreamy swath of green - no distinct set of leaves, but just light and dark green, usually dappled by sunlight. To me this was nature, and I would imagine who might live in those leafy houses - little beings? Magical creatures?

In later years, I established different relationships with trees; awe at their color changing abilities and caring for the trees at my old house - but this first fuzzy tree relationship started me off on what I consider to be the right foot.