Now that summer has officially come and gone its human nature to return to the play toys and cardboard boxes of years past and attempt to rebuild the dreams set free to roam on the streets of everyday life.
The infamous list of many things to do and to be done! Why can’t we catch up? The truth sucks; we’ve become masters in the well displayed art of procrastination. And I’m man enough to admit my name’s been on top of the “It can wait until tomorrow,” charts.
I cheat in the way of keeping focused. I talk myself out of being creative, “If I do it now, what happens if the end result steals from the energy supply and other promises are forced to wait? I can’t do that! I officially declare today is a play day!”
So the list of must do’s and you better do it before winter strikes sits and patiently waits for the circle to swing around and begin again.
I did some research on this talking trick and found out the majority of us at work, home or in states of volunteering physically don’t mind if we sit down with friends and gently explain why things shouldn’t be finished. We literally talk ourselves out of doing something that needs to be done figuring, “There’s always next weekend. It’ll probably be cooler.”
This is why we keep seeing the same authors at Barnes and Nobel and Borders Books…Peter Max and Jane Seymour at Wentworth Galleries and the same old bosses on top of the company ladder; it’s too much work to convince our creative selves to put out the energy required to make a difference today.
In 1997 I was challenged by Mother Nature to take on an inner city project that involved working side by side with the United States Forest Service; the goal was to reshape many hills by lightly decorating the tortured soil with seventeen hundred six inch seedlings. To this day I walk with a limp because the only leg used to send the shovel into the hard cold Georgia Clay was my right leg…I jokingly call it Forest Carpel Tunnel of the knee…the constant shoving then bending to bury the roots of tomorrow has served as a brilliant daily and late night reminder of how little we are when it comes to a larger path for others to follow.
Early Saturday morning I was awakened by a hauntingly loud ear piercing scream; I had never heard anything like it. Instantly shooting into action I checked on the dogs, their sleepy heads were counted while my open palm touched their chests for a heart beat. Then it was a race through the house to see if one of the birds had fallen off their perch. I saw nothing never realizing it was the forest I had been protecting trying to get my attention.
While placing dove eggs outside for the raccoons and other fuzzy creations that had called my crazy Montana way of living in the south home…I walked into a view I never dreamed of reaching; the oversized, way too tall to measure, skyscraping oak that cuddled the creek through several decades of constant seasonal changes had fallen to the earth shattering into a billion tree pieces.
No powerful thunder storms, no strong late summer winds, out of control beavers, no chainsaws or people pretending to be forest farmers…my old friend to which I had written about nearly two billion times in my daily writing chose this past Saturday morning to stop playing in the way we see life, for what I heard was the birth of angel wings enabling the old oak to soar across Carolina mountain tops often talked about by visiting big black wild crows and constantly hooting owls.
Mom always told me a forest is completely quiet when a tree decides to let go. That is absolutely not true. For the final breath of my long lost friend was that of a his limbs waving one final time, as much as it hurt to shimmy shake rattle and roll in a forest protected by a stupid ole human with no tricks up his sleeves, his determination created music to which I hear while painting pictures on your computer screen.
It was this old oak that I wrote: I don’t think humans see the true beauty of a tree…the leaves that which collect sun rays and giant beads of rain are the roots…its beneath that a tree truly blooms. I sat many a days next to that hunk of wood wondering, “What if what I write is true? How can we see what hidden secrets you keep below the soul of this soil?”
I didn’t race to the garage to find a saw to chop up the fallen tree friend. Do you have any clue how many earthworms have looked up its sturdy tree frame and said, “Wow one day I’d like to climb that tree?” By letting those not tall enough to touch the trees once highest peak, the beauty of nature is the music all who’ve been present begins to sing.
So what does any of this have to do with setting creative energies aside? Did I talk myself out of continuing to love the forest? Did I allow my neighbors to talk me into shaving the land clean so they could build and build never thinking twice of what a missing tree means?
I often wondering how many people there are in the world that don’t have a relationship with a tree. We get so darn busy with everything else expected. We plant grass, weed the flower bed, mow the lawn ten or twenty times from spring to summer and in the process of trying to be neat and clean, that front wheels of the mower keep bumping into the booty of that tree like a two year old who can’t stop tossing food or whatever else is on the tray in front of them.
Then one day…the tree falls and there’s nothing you can do as a human to put it back up. You can try your hardest to locate a tree to replace it but reality being a big bite puts you in a place of what if you personally don’t make it? How can you take your love for something so silly and give it to the eyes, ears, nose and feet of someone you’ll probably never meet.
I feel as if I should send an email to the person who planted the tree some 70 or 80 years before me. To say nothing more than, “Thank you for not talking yourself out of doing something creative. Thank single moment in your creative life gave to me many many pieces of poetry.”
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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