This Tree

And in this moment, right here, in this photo, with Ellenor snuggled next to me, I felt happy. It was so strong it was as if heat was wafting out of my ears, my heart at complete ease, and all seemed right in the world. In my world.

We picked out our family Christmas tree today. I am a firm believer in REAL trees and I think I always will be. Many childhood memories revolve around a Christmas tree, a real one, even though my mom stopped getting real ones as I got in my teen years. And just as I am a firm believer in real trees, I am almost an even firmer believer in “Charlie Brown trees.” So much so that I would prefer one of Charlie’s to a perfectly symmetric, full-boughed tree. I figure full trees are a little prideful anyway.

This year, as we have done a couple previous years, we decided to go to my family’s land and try to “thin out” by cutting down one of the pines that were clustering and choking each other out. This is always the best way to find a Charlie tree! While we waited for Tyler to scout out the trees (which Tyler is the best scoper-outer ever…always picking the best possible choice…which is exactly how he picked me), my dad pulled up in his grain truck and decided to help pull the kids out of the pickup. As we waited for Tyler to surface again, my dad began to tell me a bit about the land.

It was a field at one point. I had no idea. I had been by this piece of land probably several hundred times in my life and I had always assumed it was a tree hill. There was little flatness to this land. A bunch of small independent hills somehow uniting just because they had to. And it was a small chunk of land surrounded by roads and water. What a nightmare for any farmer. He then told me how he helped my grandpa and some hired men plant these trees in the 1950s.

All of a sudden this land took new life. These trees took new life. These hills that my dad just smiled and reminisced about somehow seemed…magnificent.

It’s moments like this that I wish I could stop and record every word. Like somehow I am missing something. Like “there’s some wisdom here: listen carefully.”

As Tyler appeared, he brought us on a quest through the snow-laden grass and what seemed like secret passages through the pines. We then came across this one lone tree. He was small in the shadows of his peers, but he was alone and randomly boughed (totally unsymmetrical) and grew exactly how he was meant to grow. My heart began to beat faster and I said, “this is the one.”

 

As we all stood there, deciding this was the tree, a part of me felt a weird connection to my Grandpa and to my ten-year-old Dad. Did they have any idea in the 50s that they would be planting this tree for me, for their grandchildren, for generations after them? It probably crossed my Grandpa’s mind. But as that tree seemed to glow (like in all the movies), it just seemed too magic. Too amazing. Too reverent.

 

We cut half the tree, which seemed barbaric to me, but Tyler assured me the remainder would grow and eventually have a rounded top and be happy. And Tyler, with his He-Man strength, carried it to the truck and we all rode in dreamy-eyed excitement home. Well, except for Tyler: he knew what awaited us as we tried to squeeze this beauty in our living room.

Right now, everyone is in their beds and I just sit. I sit on our brown couch, the fireplace humming, and ponder on it: pine cones still clinging to the branches, still uncluttered with lights or ornaments, and I think it may be the most beautiful tree I have ever seen.