Blog

I’m known as a tree whisperer to a few friends in the city – mostly due to my rural upbringing. When we went for (mandatory) family walks, my dad quizzed me on the trees we passed. Elm, oak, maple – red and sugar – locust, hawthorn… You can tell what’s what by the leaves, the branch structure, the bark and occasionally the roots. Sometimes you just have to have a sense of it. The easiest were the hawthorns – they’re covered in long, sharp spikes. I used to impale their own red berries on them. (Something to analyze there…) Second easiest is maple, which I subsequently tattooed on my body in honor of growing up in Appalachia and always remembering where I come from. Although I couldn’t tell you if the leaf on my arm is red maple or sugar. Fuck.

Anyway, yesterday a friend – the kind who has a list of her top ten favorite trees in the city – sent me a picture and asked me to help identify one. I’m proud to say I came up big. Or, well, medium big. It had pink, crepe-paper leaves and a tiny button in the middle. I knew it was a cherry (tis the season) and I even knew the type. Except I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Here, in full exactitude, is what happened:

Hey tree whisperer. Need your help
Yeah
[sends picture] What is this?
Cherry gurrrl
What! It’s my third favorite tree in the city. Right outside my building. What kind is it?
I can’t remember… bonsai or river kwai or kwanzaa or kudzu….

I stared at that response for awhile before sending it. I like when I’m weird. It makes me laugh to think that I’ve just strung those words together. I like to imagine scrolling through our long list of texts in a year and running across that. But it irked me not to get it right. (There’s a quirk/irk joke here I can’t put my finger on…) I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to come up with it without googling.

I went to bed having failed. This morning I gave in and googled. Turns out the answer is “Kwanzan.” Medium big.

I keep meaning to write. It’s just that finishing a novel is a little taxing. And there’s been a lot going on! I got a new haircut. I’m re-training my dog so he doesn’t jump on people. I’ve been oiling the butcher block.

But I suppose none of those things matter when I get to 2016 (Jesus. 2016!!) and look back and I’ve posted a grand total of four times. (Ahem. Looking at you, last year.)

So, alright. What should we talk about? I feel quite shy about sharing some of the real news in my life – the things I’ve been really thinking about, the rope swings my brain wants to be on. I’ve written here before about dating and love and, you know, Who Am I, but I hesitate to do that now. I don’t want the people who know and love me to read anything into what I’m writing – just to read it.

In the meantime – I’ve been reading and greatly enjoying Robert Graves’ Goodbye to All That. I’m on a big WWI poets/memoirists/fiction writers kick. This was recommended to me by Phil Klay at a recent book signing for his truly excellent book, Redeployment. Talk about a brain crush. That book was the perfect thing to bring me down from finishing Wondermelt in January – intense, funny, dark, veterans-centric and with a heavy focus on youthful characters. Anyway, Graves is a superstar and this is everything Phil made it out to be.

One of my favorite bits is his recollection of how his mother ended bedtime stories or jokes or fables. They always finished with her saying, “So! Flap!” Perfection. I’ve used this several times (in brain only, don’t worry) and been highly amused along the way.

So – here’s to being more present in this space, and to adjusting in others. Flap!