For the Love of Trees

I’m a finalist in the January 29th Winter Hauntings competition for my short story “Taste of Robins.” This is exciting, as I was also a finalist last year and am hoping this time, I’ll win.

Winter Hauntings required ghost stories of 1300 words or less, with a Carteret County connection. My entry from last year, “Heaven or Hell,” was set at a local beach. This year’s “Taste of Robins” returns to the island, in a maritime forest.

Because I love trees.

And I don’t mean in a vague way. I mean I kiss them, notice changes in each individual, and cry when my favorites are injured. Not all trees make the cut, but most do. I have feelings for weedy cherry laurels and majestic live oaks, loblolly pines and many-kneed cypresses. Recently, I found myself in a marsh-side ghost forest, surrounded by curtains of lacy spanish moss dangling from uprooted yet persistent junipers and stunted oaks. I could’ve stayed there all day. Places like the ghost forest are more important to me than restaurants, stores, or museums. They engage all the senses, for free. I like to go out amongst the trees and just be.

If I ever go into politics, it will be for one reason only – the trees. In the words of a friend and fellow science teacher, “My politics are those of the Ents” (the tree-people from Lord of the Rings). You’re looking at a full-on nerdy tree hugger here. Not only do I like to be among the green, I value it for its own sake. I like to think of the trees out there, undisturbed, just living their best lives, without me.

This love led to the selection of our current home, on a half-acre in a maritime forest. We went under contract on the property without going inside the house. The seller wouldn’t let anyone inside until two weeks after our contract began. We knew it was a 1200sq ft ranch from the 1970s, too small and too dated for our family of four. We agreed to spend all of our savings on a house we’d never seen, because of the trees.

There are two live oaks snuggling the front entrance like embracing arms. One has resurrection fern on its largest limb, dying and reviving with each dry spell and rain. This was enough reason to buy a house, to watch that resurrection fern’s daily drama.

We have hickories, with their hard-to-eat nuts, and evergreen junipers and magnolias. Loblolly pines, yaupon hollies, and a few red maples dot the land. Bays and cherry laurels, myrtles and a few old azaleas. I know them all by name.

If this sounds romantic, my husband feels otherwise, because he’s tasked with erecting a wooden fence along our property line to accommodate a dog. We don’t have the dog yet, but it’s in the plans. Soon, soon. Now that the poison ivy’s died back, my hubby is walking the perimeter with a post-hole digger, prepping for our new furry friend. But I won’t let him cut any trees. Instead, he goes around them, adjusting the fence to include branches and getting creative. When describing this process, my husband pantomimes shoveling dirt while a sapling violates his backside. Thank you, dear.

I recently read Harry’s Trees, about a man who climbs the tallest of each species in a forest and lives in a tree house. It was a good book, but I really just liked the part about the trees.

And now, as of a few days ago, I’ve accepted a job teaching Earth & Environmental Science at a local high school. This is not a stretch for me – I taught EE Science for eleven years. But I left the classroom nine years ago, and most of my materials are lost or outdated.

I expressed this concern to another science teacher friend who is retiring the same week I start. I asked for his supplies, but he said he already purged them. “Take them outside and talk about soil,” the veteran teacher said.

And it hit me – he was right.

If you’re looking for me and my classes, we will be out amongst the trees.

– Jessi Waugh