I sell tree work for now.
I have a certification and ten years in the field, but by in large I drive in my company car and people say, How much does it cost to get this tree to not touch my house, and I give them the number. Which is its own learned skill.
My favorite are the ones that reach over, almost vertical, stretching across the sky, bending to grasp whatever light they can. Survivalists.
I saw an Oak just today, 80 feet tall and 80 feet across, nestled in gently across the backyard behind a forest, yawning over to claim her spot in the sun, to take the light.
I have a hell of a time growing grass, the old man said, scratching his beard.
Did you study at NC State, this man wanted to know.
I should just lie but I don’t. They might have a friend in the agricultural department, I worry, and then what if I have to admit that isn’t where I went to school. Lies beget lies. Complications beget complications. My formal education is in creative writing, I say sometimes. I have an MFA.
Oh, people say. Huh.
And, I am about as good at lying as my six-year-olds, standing in the doorway of the kitchen, their hands behind their backs, a fistful of illicitly obtained M&M’s.
What’s behind your back, I ask.
Nuffing, they say, mischievous grins, slowly backing away.
My first husband and I owned a tree business. People loved us, even if we sometimes made mistakes.
Then our third son was born and we dissolved the business and moved South to be closer to my parents and not long after that we divorced.
Here in North Carolina, I come across the embroidered beanies and hoodies. They are like relics from a shipwreck.
Who was the woman, I wonder, who ordered these beanies be made. Who was the woman, who took this business so seriously, who sat in offices having our business taxes done, who deposited checks at the bank, who researched Women Business Enterprises and applied for contracts with the Forest Service.
Back in Spokane, there was an old man we did some work for who fawned over me.
A young couple on the South Hill building their family and their business, he said. You are the American Dream.
I probably laughed, looked down, touched my rounded belly. I was probably seven months pregnant with Cade.
My wife was a famous theater actress in London, he grinned. He clearly adored her. She is dying, he said. She has dementia. She can’t come outside to meet with us. Oh, she would have loved to meet you.
You’re so full of life, he said. Glowing.
He told me more about his wife and her headlining plays in London. She was Lady Macbeth, he said.
They only had a landline, so I had to call them to confirm and schedule and collect. It had an incredibly long elaborate answering message, although I can’t remember any of the details except it was both of them, and their sing song voices.
The second time I was pregnant and selling tree work, everything was different. This time, a baby girl. A new husband. He accompanied me to every OB appointment, listening, asking questions and making jokes. Doting. It was spring in the Southeast.
Toward the end of the pregnancy, my husband rode in the car with me, worried that something might happen while I was in the field at 38 weeks, just days before a scheduled c-section.
It’s a physically demanding job, my husband told the OB.
I walk through people’s yards, I clarified for her.
She’s being born on Monday, I said to a client that Wednesday she was born, my husband waiting in the car.
Two hours later we went to the OB and my blood pressure was elevated enough that they said there wasn’t much reason to keep me pregnant. I still had my quotes to write up and send out.
Later that night she was cut out of me and I held her in my arms at the hospital. My last baby. A girl. Our first and only baby together.
I’m worried about all that dead, people say.
The low dead is okay, I explain. When the top and the tips of the limbs are dying, that’s when it’s in trouble - that means it’s no longer properly transporting sugar and water. Failure in the vascular system of the tree.
But that low dead, I say, that’s tree just saying, I’m not getting a good return here so I’m not going to send any energy here. The tree knows to stop sending energy where it gets no return.
I try not to harp on this but you can see the wheels turning.
Like people, they sometimes say.
Like people, I sometimes say.
The first spring my boys and I were alone, they were just old enough to start learning tree ID.
“Look!” I would point to the Cherry trees in bloom. “Those are cherries. They’re announcing spring is here.”
The other tree that announces spring has arrived is Bradford Pears with their white blooms, the rows of Bradfords in neighborhoods of a certain age.
Sitting at a bar once, someone told me Bradfords smell like a brothel. They might have been more crude - they may have said bad pussy. The memory is blurred, although I remember the flight in front of me. Other people say sardines. Garbage. Stinky. But the brothel is what I think of every spring.
Bradford Pears are the only tree where the recommendation is always removal.
They’re invasive, weak-structured, and people say they are stinky, I explain to clients. NC State has a program called the Bradford Pear Bounty, where they’ll replace the tree with a native species.
“What are those trees saying, mommy,” Llew wants to know, putting his hands on the window, passing by a row of blooming Bradfords, ten bright white puffs in a row. “What is it saying?”
“My favorite are the ones that reach over, almost vertical, stretching across the sky, bending to grasp whatever light they can. Survivalists.” ❤️❤️❤️