One of the highlights of my day is walking by this magnificent sycamore tree right in front of my office building. It is mighty and magnificent, towering above the workers hustling to and fro far beneath its canopy. But far from being ominous or imposing, its radiates a certain reassurance that there is harmony in the world. I'm not a tree specialist or anything, but I'd assume by its size that this tree has been there for decades. I always think about the people who've come and gone underneath this tree long before I even entered the World. And during all those years, this sycamore has stood watch as silent sentinel.
That is until this morning. Right away, I noticed that my usual morning approach was askew. It quickly dawned on me that the tree was no more. Well, I should back up. That the tree was mutilated beyond recognition. I'd seen a bunch of "corporate" type people milling about the tree in the past few weeks, but wasn't really sure what they were up to. Now it made sense. The tree's canopy had grown to a point where it bent a flag pole to a 45 degree angle. I guess the building's owners decided this transgression against Man could not stand. And so out came the chainsaws.
The sight of this beautiful tree missing half of its canopy was sickening. Unnerving, really. The beauty of a tree lies in its asymmetrical symmetry. The natural curvature in its branches. Seemingly random, but really following a simple plan--go toward the sun. That was all gone now. In its place the straight, abrupt lines left by the violence of Man. I sighed and went into the building, happy that at least half the tree was in tact.
But when I left for work at the end of the day, the entire tree was gone. In its place a massive void. I'd assumed they'd just leave it be since mutilating the tree had created space for their precious fucking flagpole, but the building's ownership must have had other ideas. I was surprised at how quickly they were able to completely vanish this magnificent tree. There was nothing left to show that a tree had ever stood there. Its chopped-up corpse had been hauled away and people were already unrolling that "instant sod" bullshit where the tree used to be. The whole thing made my skin crawl, like watching someone get away with murder. I guess one small victory is that my office faces the other side of the building so I didn't have to witness any of the carnage.
You know, it's funny. Man has a lotta swagger about his awesomeness, but in reality Man is just man. Nature has been here way before us, and I'm confident it will survive us by a wide, wide margin. This whole incident with the sycamore made me angry and depressed at the same time--"How can you not get how absolutely stupid this is!?" And of course, it hammered home the injustice that lies in the difference between the arduous difficulty of creation and the nonchalant ease of destruction.
Maybe it's just an LA thing, the whole "fuck you" to nature. Collateral damage from literally living in a desert. It made me think back to my trip to Seattle and Vancouver (Seacouver!) this past May. Taking the MUNI from the airport to downtown Seattle, what struck me most was how green and lush everything was. Part of that is certainly due to the climate in the Pacific Northwest, but I also felt that a large part had to do with Man's relationship with nature being different. It wasn't all about conquering and dominating, but living in harmony. Or, at the very least, seeing Mount Rainier looming in the backdrop made you realize who was really in charge.
Anyway, I suppose I should make a positive out of a negative. I don't know why, but the absence of the sycamore tree has led me to dust off my "tweet journal" from the Seacouver trip. Its whole tortured (and lampooned) existence was so I could "blog" about my trip after the fact. I guess I didn't put up with all that ribbing just to have it sit in a drawer. And so, next stop, Seattle!
That is, of course, if I can decode my terrible handwriting. Good lord.
--KM
"'Come, Boy, sit down. Sit down and rest.' And the boy did. And the tree was happy."
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