Tree as Icon

We had our oldest tree taken down this week.

For some reason the girls called her "Yoko" when they were little, and the name stuck.

I shed some tears the night before she came down -- spurred by happy memories of the girls playing in the leaves, as well the natural drama that envelopes grand old trees becoming older and slowly losing grandeur.

That fading grandeur was an increasing concern. She was not the first of our trees to come down. This is what we woke up to one morning in the early summer of '01.

As with Yoko, this largest of trees was a Norway Maple, a substantially softer variety of hardwood. They grow quickly, but have a tendency to rot from the inside out. I saw it happening to Yoko. Unlike this old tree, she was fated to split not safely within our yard, but across the two streets that corner it -- a very costly and potentially tragic scenario.

Back in '01, after the old tree was removed, I asked a neighbor about bolstering Yoko's chances. He drove a bolt through the base, then climbed up into the branches, thinned out her limbs considerably, then tied a series of guy wires linking the key supporting limbs. "Hopefully that'll give her another ten, twelve years," he said. We pushed it to sixteen.

His trimming was quite the revelation. I couldn't believe how much he took off. But once the branches were gone I saw immediately what he was after. The wind could now blow freely through the foliage -- there was less drag, as well as less opportunity for moisture to settle in and take hold. Not only that, she now looked lovelier. The prevailing mindset tends to think, "You can't improve on nature," but with my friend's handiwork I saw just how patently false that assertion is. Now, whenever I look at old trees skirting a road or even in the woods I see their potential.

After saying my goodbyes to the still-standing Yoko (and, yes, I hugged her) I slouched off to bed. En route I took note of all the wood sustaining us, making us comfortable. Plenty of it in this house, of course -- hardwood floors, furniture, instruments, etc. I doubt any tears were shed taking down the trees that built the house. Currently there is a piece of wood retaining a great deal more emotional value as my guitar than it ever accrued as a tree growing in an Indonesian forest.

"Icon" is a word that hasn't just lost its original meaning here in the West -- it's taken on an impoverished definition. It is a cute scrawl on your phone screen that opens an application when tapped, or the Thing Itself -- "Hollywood icon, Clint Eastwood..." Originally, however, an icon was an object that, when considered or meditated upon, could potentially open a window to the Divine. Yoko surprised and informed me in so many unexpected ways -- she is a personal icon.