On Trees

       I exit the backdoor and watch the alley cat Tabitha watch me warily from a couple yards away, ready to run if I approach—and equally ready to leap onto the porch after I disappear to enjoy the cat food I put out for her and her kin.  I smile at her reticence and speak soothing nothings in that high voice people reserve for infants and pets while I step slowly down to the sidewalk.  Then I must mind my feet to step around fuzzy-topped acorns.  The sun isn't up high enough to shine into the yard, so I shiver in the cold, thankful the elms at the border of our yard block the wind for now.  I eye the base of our mulberry tree by the alley, but no cat hides within the brush, and I must soon step closer to the dipped and cracked center of the alley to avoid the overhanging branches of a redbud tree.
       I round the corner of the alley onto Washington Street, holding my breath past the stench of cigarettes from the open door of a small rental house, and cross the next intersection diagonally.  On this side of the street, I must circle widely around the antique chevy parked on the sidewalk under a leaning elm, and farther down, circle the opposite way to avoid the sprawling branches of a tree that I struggle to identify, it having been pruned and regrown often enough that it more closely resembles a bush than a tree, and though it bears long leaves like a white walnut, its quick growth hints that it belongs to a different family.  I ponder its name while I pass under a myriad of elms, maple, sweet gum, and oak trees lining the street.  One house's crab apples are just now beginning to drop their fruit, making the ground gummy for a few meters.  At the next corner, I look in vain for the white cat I sometimes see there, then turn my gaze to admire the elegant Persian Silk tree catycorner to me as I cross the street.  I miss its delicate silken flowers and elusive scent from earlier in the year. 
       While walking by the library on my right, I gaze fleetingly at the depleted branches of their Bradford pears and at their similarly empty parking lot; it's too late in the year for many leaves and too early in the day for any patrons.  I wonder idly if I should stop on my way home to pick up a book or two, then admit the diversion would only keep me from my chores, so I regretfully decide against it.
       Past the next street, the sidewalk leads me between a high chain-link fence on one side and more elms on the other.  Another house down, I just barely need to duck under the branches of an apple tree whose dessicated fruits have long since vanished into trash cans or the grass around its base.  On the other side of the ally abutting that house, lovely lilac bushes, still mostly green, line the yard of the quiet Sundquist home, with a forsythia bush and an oak adorning the street side of the walk.
       Beyond 11th Street, which I cross carefully, lies the home of "Sweetie"—my name for a miniature collie who comes to the gate of his fenced backyard for petting whenever he's there and hears me approach.  Elms continually try to grow between the sidewalk and the cinder-block dirt barrier beside that home's front yard, despite periodic prunings.  Since they're in need of another, I'm obliged to walk on the far left side of the sidewalk.  I notice that though the redbud and crabapples on the street side are losing their leaves, the yellow day lilies beside the house are blooming a second time this year.  Soon I near the back fence and confirm that "Sweetie" isn't out.  Near the end of the fence, however, I see the neighbor's calico cat jump between the warped slats into the back yard where she sits, meowing plaintively at me as I pause to coax her closer.  She doesn't budge, so I continue to her owner's yard, a beautifully maintained flower bed with wisteria growing up the pillars around the front door, though the flowers below are now dead or dying.  A high, whitewashed fence hides the side yard, and a romantic archway forms between a crab apple on my left and a cherry tree hanging over the fence on my right—or it would be romantic if less fruit spattered the sidewalk underfoot.  I pass between a mound of tall, spiky grass and more wisteria along the sideyard's rear, chain-link fence, emerging beside a parking lot half encircled with three tall oaks, widely spaced.  My workplace lies directly east at the end of the road just ahead, so I angle my steps diagonally across the deserted lot; the company to which it belongs went out of business some months ago, and now I will only occasionally see a cop park in the lot, perhaps to do his paperwork or eat his lunch.
       I jog across busy Main Street, slowing past a green house converted from a residential dwelling into a business, which is also currently ownerless.  Sadly, no cats stir in the old house diagonally ahead and across the street from it, so I stay on the southern sidewalk along the long parking lot of a medical facility.  A wide spread of grass and crab apple trees decorate the street side, and on my right in a bed of wood chips, bushes with orange berries alternate with evergreen trees kept small and ornamental from pruning.  That ends the business district, and I pass many residential homes where American elms and a variety of sugar maples and silver maples tower above me every few feet on my left, and a variety of catalpa, oak, smoke tree, redbud, Japanese maple, sycamore, honey locust, goldenrain, and one gorgeous weeping willow draw my appreciative eyes on my right.  Squirrels occasionally dart up a tree upon my approach.
       Many blocks later, I come to the Lutheran church, which boasts several Bradford pears—one rather badly mangled, perhaps having been pruned of diseased parts—standing before its walls filled with narrow stained glass windows.  Oaks line the church's parking lot, which, when it's not needed for a funeral or wedding, is frequently full of student vehicles, as it is now.  One house remains before Plum Street and the community college; as I cross the gravel alley at the rear of the church, I regret not knowing my evergreen trees better, for a wide specimen graces the yard, but closer to the house, I happily recognize the barren magnolia tree, remembering its large blooms from two seasons earlier.
       Traffic obligingly stops at the walk signal that a girl initiated from the opposite sidewalk, and we cross to the college, then head different ways.  I pass under a cypress, whose identity I'd just recently discovered thanks to Google's image search.  More elms and oaks adorn the lawn, along with a couple acacia-looking thorny trees whose name still eludes me.  I walk inside, determined to look it up, but by the time I hang up my jacket, clock in, and complete my morning chores, my mind is on work rather than arboreal mysteries.


       Among the places I've lived, trees have been rather ubiquitous—not forest-thick, usually, but one can hardly find a place outdoors where one cannot see a single tree somewhere at the distant end of a grain field.  Trees are a bit like the picture we've had on our walls for years and never look at anymore; a detail in the background—pretty and enhancing, but hardly worth further attention.  We're reminded each Arbor Day to appreciate them, and we notice them when their appearance changes, they need care, or they prove useful or inconvenient at a given moment.  We know, intellectually at least, that they provide beauty, privacy, windblocks, food, furniture, firewood, shade, reduced erosion, and water conservation.  How often, however, do we pass them by without a thought, accepting their existence as easily as the grass or the sky?  Walking to work each day has helped me notice and appreciate them; how boring the town would look without them!  Who could ever be bored anywhere if equipped with decent observation skills and an active imagination? 
       I still spend some days walking around more in my head than in the world—more aware of my thoughts than the objects around me.  On such days, I may notice the carpet of maple or elm seeds underfoot, and I may take care to navigate around large acorns or spiky sweet gum seeds, but I don't wonder at their parent trees or note their growth or seasonal changes.  When I do notice, however, these changes ensure that the same path never looks quite the same, and they give me cause to praise God for His fascinating creation.