Comfort in the Clouds
The fairy tree in the northeast corner of the woods has finally laid herself down.
From her reclining position on the spongy forest floor, it looks as if it all happened without violence, strong invisible arms gently lowering her to the ground with tender regard. I shall miss her tall presence, the hollowed-out base of her trunk, perfect hiding place for apples and Jolly Ranchers for the deer and raccoons. For twenty-six years (and who knows how many before that?) she stood stalwart and hospitable on four sturdy feet while owls and squirrels poked their little faces out the holes shaped to perfect roundness by the canopies’ woodpeckers.
Two winters ago, my suburban-dwelling niece called with a mild mouse dilemma—she’d live-trapped two from her garage (or kitchen) and shyly asked if she could release them on the land so they’d have a chance for a better life. Of course she could (we’ve turned down offers of live-released groundhogs and skunks. Got plenty of those). When? Is it ok if we’re not here when you drop them off? We arranged the details with minimalist ease. I didn’t suggest a specific location; she thought she’d just start down the walking path once she got here and see where the forest called her. Tucked carefully into a tightly woven oval jute basket, with empty toilet paper tubes stuffed inside around a thick pack of straw, these two small critters were about to go big or go home.
The relocation took place almost unnoticed for weeks until I was off the main walking path and picking my way toward the fairy tree when I saw the basket carefully tucked into the hollowed-out base of her trunk. Lucky mice, I thought. I couldn’t have chosen a more perfect spot and my niece found it without a nudge from me. This is the Ritz of woodland real estate, and she had provided every eventuality—straw, cardboard for chewing into softer bedding and a generous handful of peanuts, mice tucked behind it all in ultimate warmth and luxury. I expect they slept all the way there, rocking gently in the cradle of my niece’s arm as she made her way along the path.
On another walking morning, I stopped by the area to check on everyone, looked up and saw the round fluff of a saw-whet owl’s face filling the topmost hole in the tree’s slender trunk. Her eyes blinked once and stared down at me with cautious curiosity, wondering whom she should thank for the neatly packaged and unexpected DoorDash delivery this far from human civilization. Whether the mice met the owls or squirrels, I’ll never know. But with the tree now sleeping horizontally, all remaining residents were suddenly evicted by wind and gravity. The forest will hold onto that story forever.
There’s now a long vertical gap in the tree line’s smile, no less magical but giving off a wistful vibe to this section of the wooded neighborhood. The surrounding blue beech, black walnuts and red maples seem to be standing a bit straighter and it feels like respect. I touch the smoothness of her trunk beneath peeling slabs of grooved bark and thank her for shade and shelter. She taught us all strength and perseverance, hospitality as only a tree can do, lessons we could all put to good use these days. When I have a need for sanctuary and presence, I sit here among the standing and the fallen and remember, gratefully, how small I am indeed.
To catch you up from the last long-ago post, my dear friend passed away on August 21st after several rough nights of terminal restlessness. If you’ve not witnessed such a transition before, it can run the gamut of unsettling to disturbing. It hurts to remember that she was on the more difficult side of things that way and though I wanted to look away, I also could not abandon her. I sat vigil in her darkened room for three or so hours as she worked hard to get what she wanted, something I couldn’t see. When I finally left her side, the meds had finally done their job and she was sleeping a bit askew in her reclining rolling chair (wheels locked), a soft blanket pulled up to her shoulders. Five days later she was gone.
Walking out to my car that afternoon to make the long trip back home, I looked up to see thick and towering bunches of clouds as only a humid August day in Ohio can conjure up. They made the sticky unmoving air almost bearable and embodied the word “majesty” without question. As I registered the sharp contrast—bright, warm white and blue expanse above me, while my friend snatched some moments of peace for herself in the shuttered darkness of a nursing home room—I felt comforted by the transitory existence of something grander and softer than even my own heart. They were eye-soothing and brilliant, ever changing and yet perfect (to paraphrase Richard Bach from “Illusions”), a billowy welcome to any and all souls making that trip across the great divide in classic childhood “heaven is up there” thinking. Some days I forget just how much is above our heads, in so many ways. And all it takes is a simple head and neck adjustment that naturally drops the mandible of our skulls in the open and awestruck position. Rather nifty architecture if you ask me.
The skies were like that on the day my other dear friend died (can it be she’s been gone nine years now? I swear, I just said goodbye to her last week), the clouds pushing each other back and forth to make room for her. I was standing by my car that day beneath an oil painting that kept reinventing itself and it brought me a much-needed measure of joy. I’ll never forget that.
We’re well into the cold gray days of autumn and winter solstice is still a few miles away. The gray clouds that swirl overhead unfold themselves like moth-eaten quilt batting, changing shape and softening the sharp edges of the trees’ bare arms stretched out and waiting for the snow that will soon cover them. If it weren’t so risky to sleep outside in the bed of my truck on such nights, I’d be parking myself in the meadow just next to the Old Man sycamore tree, bundled up in as many blankets as I have. Maybe the clouds would part and dissipate just enough for me to witness the flashing streaks of next week’s Leonids’ meteor shower and give me a memory to last a lifetime.
All I have to do is stop. And look Up.
