The Tree in my Front Yard by Marie Cartier

I have not been in this room for three years- except to run in and out -the pandemic made me claustrophobic and anyway I usually need a coffee shop environment to write and we were in lock down so my wife and I transformed our living room to a coffeeshop, Fig and Hillary’s- so named for the huge Hillary poster on the wall and the fig trees in the backyard. My office became a storage room piled high with—what? Stuff.

Then, finally… it seemed the pandemic –at least in terms of dire death prediction—was perhaps over. It took most of this post pandemic year to get up out of the living room where I had encamped to come back to here—my actual office. To put the bookshelves back and—to turn my desk around so I am  not facing the door but facing the window.

And facing the tree. We were able to buy this house because of the tree. Because when we were searching and there was nothing we could afford I went to a pagan birthday party and bitched about the lousy market for home buyers. Three days later I got a call from someone I did not know- someone who had been at this massive party but had not introduced themselves. He said- look I heard you talking about the lousy market. I need to sell my grandmother’s house. I’ve been trying to hold onto my mother’s and grandmother’s houses and I just can’t do it anymore—but you have to promise not to cut down the trees.

I said my intention as a fellow pagan would be to never cut down the trees.

So we bought the house for $320,000 because that’s all we had and he wanted to sell it to us…I say that because the value in the house now is $780…crazy. And it doesn’t really matter. It only matters if we are moving, which we are not.

And that tree in the front. I could tell you to visit me – behind the CVS. There in the cul de sac community. And if you go to the house with the biggest tree, that’s my house.

My neighbor told me, “Oh yes, that tree—Renee planted that- it was a Christmas tree.”

“Renee?” I asked.  “Do you mean… Ren?”

“Well, I knew her as Renee,” my neighbor explained.

“Hmm,” I said, “I know him as Ren.”

So the tree that shades my study is the tallest in the neighborhood, it is full of pine cones. Our cat got stuck in it once. We’ve had it pruned once. I’ve seen raccoons, possums, squirrels, crows, hummingbirds and others in that tree…one time I opened the door, and on the lowest branch three bandit-faced raccoons blinked their eyes at me eight feet away.

I’ve decorated that tree for Christmas with stars and moon spheres and under it a blow-up campfire and two mice roasting marshmallows. During the 2020 election the mice had Hillary signs. Everyone loves the blow-up camping mice in our neighborhood.

And that tree during the pandemic… we couldn’t have people in the house so we set up chairs and a table under the tree and had coffee, tea, drinks– even a Thanksgiving dinner under that tree with friends.

And that tree!

I can see her now from my desk window.

The sun has set and the moon will rise. The moon will set and the sun will rise. My dog and I will walk later tonight and the first thing Zuma will do will be to run around her tree and sniff out the latest news. We will walk away from the tree and we will walk home

And that Christmas tree– once a decoration and now the tallest in the neighborhood—the transformation we all go through growing and seeking out the sun- that tree will greet me when I come home.

–Marie Cartier

July 10, 2023

With thanks to QueerWise