Samar has the look of someone who has seen too much. Someone who wants the world to quiet itself.
Soon after moving in, Samar began sneaking into the yard once her parents had fallen asleep. Even on the coldest nights, she trudged outside in her red boots and green jacket. Her breath was a frosty veil. She would stare at the moon, and at me, and sometimes, at the little green house next door, where a boy who looks to be about her age lives.
As it grew warmer, Samar would venture out in her pajamas and robe and sit beneath me on an old blanket, spattered with moonlight. Her silence was so complete, her gentleness so apparent, that the residents would crawl from their nests of thistledown and dandelion fluff to join her. They seemed to accept her as one of their own.
Bongo especially loved Samar. She would flit to her shoulder and settle there. Sometimes she would say “hello,” in a fine imitation of Samar’s voice.
Often Bongo gave Samar little gifts she’d found during her daily flights. A Monopoly token (the car). A gold hair ribbon. A cap from a root beer bottle.
Bongo keeps a stash of odds and ends in one of my smaller hollows (which the opossums kindly tolerate). “You never know who I might need to bribe,” she likes to say.
But her gifts to Samar weren’t bribes. They were just Bongo’s way of saying, “I’m glad we’re friends.”
If this were a fairy tale, I would tell you there was something magical about Samar. That she cast a spell on the animals, perhaps. Animals don’t just leave their nests and burrows willingly. They are afraid of people, with good reason.
But this isn’t a fairy tale, and there was no spell.
Animals compete for resources, just like humans. They eat one another. They fight for dominance.
Nature is not always pretty or fair or kind.
But sometimes surprises happen. And Samar, every spring night, reminded me there is beauty in stillness and grace in acceptance.
And that you’re never too old to be surprised.
9
I was pleased to see Samar’s family join the neighborhood. It had been a long while since we’d had any newcomers. But I knew that with time they would put down roots, just like so many other families from so many other places.
I know a thing or two about roots.
One night not long ago, Samar came out to visit. It was two in the morning. Late, even for her.
She had been crying. Her cheeks were damp. She leaned against me and her tears were like hot rain.
In her hand was a small piece of cloth. Pink with little dots. Something was written on it.
A wish. The first wish I’d seen in months.
I wasn’t surprised she knew about the wishtree tradition. I’m kind of a local celebrity.
Samar reached up, gently pulled down my lowest branch, and tied the fabric in a loose knot.
“I wish,” she whispered, “for a friend.”
She glanced over at the green house. Behind an upstairs curtain, a shadow moved.
And with that, Samar vanished back into the little blue house.
10
When you stand still for over two centuries while the world whirls past, things happen.
Mostly, by far and away, good things have been my lot in life. My leaves have cooled picnickers and proposers. Beneath my boughs vows have been made, hearts mended. Nappers have napped; dreamers have dreamed. I’ve watched ascents attempted, listened to stories spun.
And the laughter! Always and forever, laughter.
But sometimes things happen that aren’t so good. When they occur, I’ve learned that there’s not much you can do except stand tall and reach deep.
I have, for example, been hacked at, carved into, used for target practice.
I have been underwatered, overpruned, fertilized and fussed over, ignored and neglected. I have been struck by lightning, battered by sleet.
I have been threatened with axes, chainsaws, diseases, and insects.
I have tolerated the sharp claws of squirrels and the nagging pokes of woodpeckers. I have been climbed by cats and marked by dogs.
I have my aches and pains, like everyone. Last year I had a mite infestation that drove me nuts. Leaf blister, sooty mold, oak wilt, leaf scorch: Been there, done that.
Still, trees are luckier than people in one way. Only one percent of a fully grown tree is actually alive at any one time. Most of me is made of wood cells that are no longer living. In many ways, that makes me tougher than you.
So, yes. I’ve seen a lot. And who knows? I may see much more. I could live to be three hundred, five hundred, even. It happens. Red oaks lead long lives, longer than our daintier friends black willows, persimmons, apples, and redbuds.
And yet, a few days after Samar’s tearful wish, something happened that made me wonder if I’d finally witnessed too much.
11
The morning was budding, and I was waiting for warmth. Down the street, a lanky boy was lingering near a stop sign.
Head down, he was hunched over like a windblown weed. In his right hand was something shiny. A tool, maybe, or a pen.
He was smiling just a bit, as if he’d told himself a joke. A joke only he, perhaps, understood.
All day long I see people lost in thought, talking to themselves, grinning, frowning. He was nothing out of the ordinary.
I was in the midst of a conversation with Bongo, who had just pointed out to me that I was a year older. Two hundred and sixteen rings old, to be precise.
“Another sproutday,” I said. “I still feel like a sapling.”
“You don’t look a day over a hundred and fifty,” Bongo replied. “Best-looking tree on the block.”
“I’m really”—I paused for comic effect—“getting up there.”
Bongo, who was perched on my lowest branch, sighed. A crow sigh is unmistakable, like a groan from a tiny, cranky old man.
“Tree humor,” I explained, just in case Bongo had missed it, although of course she hadn’t. Bongo misses nothing. “Because, you know, I’m so tall.”
“Really, Red?” Bongo stretched, admiring her lustrous blue-black wings. “That’s the best you got for me this morning?”
“Maybe you’d appreciate my joke more if you weren’t so sensitive about your stature,” I teased.
“Corvids don’t give a flying tail feather about height,” Bongo said. “Smarts. Wiles. Trickery. Cunning. That’s what counts in our neck of the woods.”
“Corvids” is a fancy name for birds like crows, ravens, jays, and magpies. Bongo says she’s too classy for a label as common as “crow.”
A soft wind tickled my branches. Spring, that old rascal, was teasing us with the promise of warmer days.
“The truth is,” I said, “it doesn’t matter what size you are, Bongo. We grow as we must grow, as our seeds decided long ago.”
“Red. Way too early in the morning for the Wise Old Tree routine.” Bongo gave me a gentle peck. “Although, you’re right. It doesn’t matter how tall you are.” In a fluttery blur, she sailed to a telephone pole far above my leafy canopy. “Not when you can fly, pal.”