Forest From the Family Tree
The
house where I grew up for the first seventeen years of my life was
set atop a small hill in southern Manitoba, surrounded by a shelter
of poplar (trembling aspen), Manitoba maple, and American elm trees.
There were fields on three sides of the house and barnyard and the
pasture on the fourth side, with grass, flowers, shrubs such as
boxwood, wild rose, and wolf willow, stands of poplar and maple, and
with willow around all the low spots were water pooled in the spring.
Pussywillows were the first flowers, along with crocuses in the last
drifts of snow. Since this beginning, I can never imagine myself
living anywhere where I am not surrounded by trees.
However,
in thinking symbolically, and about family, the tree I think of, at
least for my father and his family, is the oak. Firstly, because the
name of our hometown was Oak River. Secondly, because on at least
three sides of our family there were Royal Navy ties (and the navy
relied on oak for their ships). And thirdly, because of the ancient
ties to the oaks of the British Isles, the oak groves, and the pagan
rituals associated with what I have learned is called the nemeton,
the sacred space in the woods.
My
mother, on the other hand, grew up in British Columbia. The trees of
her childhood were giant Ponderosa pines with their long needles and
huge pine cones. The pines along with wild rose bordered the river
and pines anchored the hillsides and continue to do so today.
Although, at the front door of the ranchhouse there was a giant
Manitoba maple. A cutting had been brought with the family when they
relocated from the Red River Valley in Manitoba to the Kettle Valley
in BC in 1891. They had also transplanted Golden Glow, a flowering
bush, which they brought with them from New Brunswick, and a lilac
bush which formed the backdrop of every family photo. So Manitoba did
not sound completely foreign. Mum's honeymoon journey was the drive
from the ranch in Kettle Valley to the farm at Oak River, Manitoba, a
distance of some 1700 kilometers, or about 1000 to 1200 miles at the
time. As they neared the farmstead Dad pointed. “The house is over
there, behind the bluff.” Mum looked at him in disbelief. There was
no bluff. The first culture clash. In Manitoba a bluff is a grove of
trees. In BC it is a rockface.
Mum
loved being outdoors more than indoors. She always had a huge garden.
She mowed a huge lawn, tended pansies, petunias, and a bed of tiger
lilies. One summer on a fishing trip north towards Riding Mountain
National Park, she stopped and dug up a small fir tree from a ditch
where it would surely have died and transplanted it to the edge of
her lawn. The closest fir trees to our farm were those planted in
square lines around the cemetery on the road into town. Like Mum, her
transplanted tree survived, it lived, but it was alone, lonely.
Homesick. Longing, perhaps. With a feeling of belonging elsewhere,
even though the Golden Glow bloomed beneath her window and the lilacs
flowered every spring.
The
first house I bought myself was in Winnipeg's granola-belt West End,
where the elm tree branches intertwine over the street, making it
seem like the nave of a cathedral. My first house in BC was anchored
by a giant weeping willow and the yard was ringed by cedar, fir,
birch, wild cherry, holly, and a walnut tree. My present house is in
a surround of grand fir with an understory of wild rose, dogwood,
honeysuckle, laburnum, box, and plantings of rhododendron and
hydrangea. I rely on the generosity of friends every spring for
bouquets of lilac within whose perfume, wherever, I always feel at
home.
I love
this winter shot of the red wheelbarrow in the snow. You can tell
that my house too was once living trees. But my favourite tree
quotation is from Canadian-born writer/musician Buffy Sainte-Marie -
“I was an oak. Now I'm a willow. Now I can bend.”
The
poster at the top of this post hangs in a Starbucks in Vancouver.
“The deeper the roots, the higher the reach.” “Work closely
with farmers.” “Look around the globe.” “I would like to make
a difference.” Not to mention, I like coffee.
