Trees

There's a line in Willa Cather's book My Antonia that I love. It's a book about people who live on the Nebraskan plains. They're strong, resillient and loving people, but the country there is unrelenting. There aren't many trees. She writes that the people visit the few trees that are there as if "they were old friends."

I've discovered that trees are important to me as well. In San Jose, California we lived in an area known as Willow Glen. Give you an idea of what it was like? Lots of trees. Our house's lot was surrounded. We had two peach trees, an apricot, two varieties of apple and a cherry tree, a huge pine that we had to keep topping because it was so large, and along the back of our yard was a long cluster of birch trees that were so tall and thick it looked like there was a forest behind our house rather than someone else's home.

When we moved here to Colorado Springs we purchased a new house. How exciting! we thought, to be able to do everything the way we wanted. We didn't know that the climate here is tougher and that things are harder to grow. In addition we discovered that there are more things that can cause trees to die here--the weather, the soil conditions, etc. It's been an adjustment.

I have come to understand better what Willa Cather meant when she penned that phrase. Trees to me have also become like old friends. I wish I had more.