Trees

Diamonds on the Water

Trees
Posted on 10 Comments on Diamonds on the Water

Indeed, the late afternoon sun is glinting off the waves of Admiralty Bay. Each wave sparkles separately, like an aquatic diamond.
I have gotten back from a 16 day venture to help my family make a major move. It was originally scheduled to be 6 days. So blessed that I have the latitude to be flexible. Yes, the venture involved goats, several dogs, cats, septic system pipes, real estate brokers, and 98 degree weather.
On some of the stops we made in the multiple round trips to and from the new home, there were rocks by the side of the road or parking area that seemed to call out to me, “You need to take me home.” A couple were flat slabs of about a foot square, others were large chunks of holey volcanic rock, a couple were rusty red volcanic rock. Yes, you’re right, they are now here at home, finding places in my gardens.

“I Talk to the trees but they don’t listen to me.” The lyrics written by Alan Jay Lerner from the movie, Paint Your Wagon. Now Alan was married 8 times, perhaps the trees doubted his credibility. At least I listen to the rocks.

Driving home on I-5 north, I passed by Kalama, Oregon. The gigantic sign in bright yellow letters that said RESTAURANT, was still there. Fifty years ago, that same sign was there as I was driving home to Seattle with my Uncle Jerry. It was late at night, I was a kid, and he was driving. I was the only other one awake in the car with five people. The first ‘A’ in the sign was out as we drove by, so the sign said REST URANT. We had great fun laughing about resting our rants. Rants about late night driving, soggy French fries, and my cousin snoring.

This stunning view is going up Ochoco Pass in Oregon on one of the moving trips. So much beautiful scenery in the high desert, so much geologic amazement to see: basalt cliffs, deep gorges, mesas.

As I neared home and pulled up to the ferry, I saw there was still room on board the boat. Yay! Then I was miffed as the staff person put an orange barrier in front of me, walked around a minute or two, then closed the gate to the ferry.
I only had to wait about 20 minutes until the next one, yet I was still a bit cranky. Then, then, I was the first car to board the next boat. First. Which meant I was front and center with the wide open view in front of me of the sunset. The Universe had a plan for me, I just needed to be there.
Gorgeous orange and pink sky, waves swishing up against the boat. And diamonds on the water.

A Mysterious Thread

Living fully, Oregon, Trees
Posted on 13 Comments on A Mysterious Thread

Peninsula College photo by Mary Dessein
It is the most gorgeous fall I can remember.
Now that could mean this is the only fall I can remember. It could mean I am truly amazed by the flamboyant oranges, golds, yellows, russets, ambers, corals, titians, hennas, coppers, and saffrons I see across the park in the one hundred foot tall cottonwoods and maples.

It could mean I have been so focused on going, doing, finishing, scheduling, herding, supervising, parenting, balancing, cleaning, and meeting that I did not take time to look around me. No matter how the wind blew or how high the tawny maple leaves piled up in the corners of my carport, I had tasks to complete, dawdling in wonder was not on that list.

In the fall that I started first grade, I could hardly wait for the first day of school. My mother bought me a dress. It came in a plastic bag, was folded neatly and flatly like the shirts on tables at Penney’s. She probably got it there actually. I clearly recall the pale steel blue background with little gold and dark blue pinwheel designs in an orderly pattern of rows, similar to a chain link fence. I kicked through the leaves as Mom walked me the nine blocks to Central Elementary School, delivered me to Miss Winan’s first grade classroom, then took my little sister’s hand and walked back home.

In driving southeast on I-90 through Sammamish, by Preston, over Snoqualmie Pass, alongside Keechelus Lake, and past Cle Elum a few days ago, I again thought, “This is the most gorgeous fall I can remember.”

How much have I skimmed by without taking the time to really see? Oh my, I don’t think I want to start a list. What I do want to do is start anew. Hear the Canadian geese flying over head and stop to listen to their honking.

Ritter Ridge, OR photo by Mary Dessein

See the jagged edges of ice along Camas Creek, white against the dark creek bed; watch the fuchsia leaf dangling below the hanging basket on my porch by a mysterious thread twisting in the breeze; watch a toddler pulling at the handles of a paper grocery bag and laughing in delight while she sits in the shopping cart; pull my car off to the side of the road of Ritter Ridge and gaze into the forever distance over the hills at the gathering soft pink and orange dusk; play fetch-the-stick with my grand-puppies and be in their joy, not my to-do list.

Indeed, this is the most gorgeous fall I can remember.

The Trees Knew

Change, Memories, Trees
Posted on 21 Comments on The Trees Knew

Snohomish River & Trees. photo by Mary Dessein
Walking along 1st Street recently, where I lived from age five until age twenty, I heard the huge cottonwoods and alders, before I really saw them. Yes, they are over a hundred feet tall, yet it is like driving along the freeway: I see the road surface but I pay minimal attention to it, and make no note of it.
One of my character defects is that when I see something enough times, like the clutter stacked on my love-seat, it becomes invisible.
I did not see the trees … until they called to me.

The “yes, yes, yes,” sound of thousands of their leaves whooshing in the breeze beckoned me. It was then that I turned and really looked at them. I heard the softest, shooshy whisper, “We knew you as a little girl.”

By golly, they did.
Oh, the street has changed – the section that was twenty plus feet below street level for those three blocks along 1st Street had been filled in sometime in the last thirty years. The three houses that were there forty years ago were now gone, replaced by an electric company, the City Public Works, a towing company, and a couple other large truck and construction businesses.

Yet the trees were still there along the edge of the river, as tall and strong as ever. Lush with late summer golden and orange leaves, rustling susurrous voices, gently soughing their song to me.
To the little girl I was, and had mostly forgotten.

Trees along River Trail. photo by Mary Dessein

Hearing the trees, I remembered how I sang to them when I was out in the backyard batting my tetherball around the pole my dad put up for me when I was in elementary school. I remembered sitting in their shade for the picnics on the blanket with my sister and our dolls. I remembered the great dollops of snow falling from their boughs when the sun warmed their branches after a storm.

And the trees remembered me.

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