Deep in the woods of Iowa, there is an oak.
I find it strange, that in a world full of activities
directed at young children, I somehow managed to spend a majority of my free
time within the early autumn shade of a lone oak tree. A better part of my life
was spent among its husky trellises, climbing and adventuring- doing what young
boys do. It was a place of adventure and mystery- where nothing could be
something, and something could be entirely different than it truly was. I doubt
the tree has ever fully recovered from the childish havoc I once wrought upon
it.
I once returned to this tree later in my life. But I was not
seeking the adventures I once had with it. In the same branches that I had once
seen as a dragon to be fought or a ship on the high seas, I now sat, silently
admiring my childhood playground. There was no yelling of pirates or of princes,
just a quiet stillness that enveloped my limbs as I observed.
Stubborn, this oak. Fat and rigid from years of abuse and
toil- Knotted and twisted from decades of growth and loss- Spending seasons
reconstructing severed arms and legs that nature saw fit to remove. This tree
had spent years climbing inside itself to survive the hardest winter's known to
the Midwest. Though the harsh conditions had stunted its growth and made
the oak much shorter than most around it, I can only foster imaginations of the
growth that occurred below this tree. Undoubtedly it had grown a web of roots
that tightly gripped the dirt, holding on to life. Resilience: in natural form.
An oak is a reclusive creature, spending its days somberly
watching the activity around it. What else can it do, really? I wonder how it
thinks of the birch and pine. I wonder if it cares much for the chipmunks that
scurry up and down it or the woodpeckers that tattoo its bark. Maybe it resents
them, or perhaps it enjoys watching the hustle and bustle of woodland life. Of
course a tree cannot have such feelings, and if it could, I doubt it would be
of such petty things.
If this oak could think, I am sure it would admire these small
animals who move around with such freedom. After all, a tree is fixed to the
ground in which it grows, a sage slave of the woods. From its roots it gathers
life, but its roots are also the very thing that keep it in bondage. It lives a
peaceful life, from its position watching a familiar landscape. There may not
be more of a peacefully dull existence.
It was in this moment of recollection I shared in this
tree's sameness, in its quiet anguish of peace. I was desperately cherishing
the thought of nomadic life, yet holding tightly to the earth in which the
roots of my existence were bound. I know not of why trees are tied down so
concretely, nor of why they feel such a need to grow so deep. Perhaps it is for
security, or maybe it is just the way they are.
Years have passed and the oak has since fallen. Some might
suggest that it was from age or nature's harsh beating that it forced it to
finally give in and topple, but I believe the chipmunks and woodpeckers
finally enticed this mammoth to attempt a step into a life of motion. Perhaps
the tree now lays defeated on the earth because of its pursuit of freedom;
sitting in the dirt in which it was once rooted, indeed still a part of the
landscape in which it grew, but never to be entangled within it in the same way
again.
Deep in the woods of Iowa, there is an oak.
