I'm A Tree, A World Cup Game, and Sci-Fi Combined

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We had back-to-back severe thunderstorms come through my area last week, and you can still see the tree limb fall out as you drive anywhere around here. After I left my soccer mom gathering on the night of the first storm, as everyone texted the group that we’d gotten home safely, one of us said she arrived home to find a tree sunk deep into her neighbor’s house.

That’s the deal around here. This is a place as in love with its dense green forests as it is terrified of the intrinsic vulnerability those forests create at times of high wind.

When I was visiting with my soccer mom friends, as the storm hit hard within a minute or two, I called home to see if everything was okay. My fear is always that a tree or a substantial part of it will plunge into a room of my house with a human in it. I know this is uncommon, but that’s fear for you.

And the weirder the weather over time, the greater this fear.

The next morning, I assessed the storm’s effects. I looked out my window to see a big branch lying prone in my neighbor’s yard. In my yard, there were small branches strewn about and plenty of leaves in polka-dotted clumps everywhere. My roof survived both big and small hits. I was lucky.

Eventually, I got over to the trail near my house for a walking tour of what the storm did to my beloved forest. If you like drama, you’d have loved the tour. If you like trees, you’d have been forlorn like me, because it’s always sad to see a big tree on its lengthy side, downed for good, dead forever.

Early in my walk, I encountered half of a large tree ripped from the other side of its body, now lying across the trail. My eyes popped. Wow. It will take a decent volunteer effort by some generous local with a chainsaw to get that thing cleaned up. I thanked whoever that would be as I climbed over the branch and continued. In no time, I saw the biggest victim of the storm, an enormous tree firmly dead across the trail, and this one would clearly need the county’s efforts at removal. I turned on my phone’s camera and started clicking.

As my walk progressed, and the music on my phone created a sort of emotional soundtrack — and the damage from the storm came with each turn in the trail, and the planes barreled by mindlessly above, and the distant sound of chainsaws buzzed and mulching engines howled, and a siren wailed from far away as they will — my disposition slowly spun from a managed frame of mind to one of an unsettled skew.

Life isn’t all fun and games, is it? That’s what I thought, anyway.

And I was right, but the real unsaid emotion underneath this was that life wasn’t fun and games at all.

And this isn’t true.

When things move from expected to unexpected, from good to bad, from happy to sad, we tend to run with that, at least for a little while. The evolved little bug in our brains wants to make sure we don’t get too comfy with things. We must have some part of us watching behind our backs.

But it’s also not great to be holed up on top of a perch with a pair of binoculars, watching our backs night and day and night, certain that we’ll find something. It turns out that what we’ll find is often some fun and some games.

I usually insert some intentional effort at awareness on my walks. This means no music and, if the sun is willing, I take off my brimmed hat to take in the full scope of my surroundings — sky to ground. I might stop walking and just listen. I might intentionally scan the beauty around me, and there’s always some kind of beauty, even in the suburban scape. There’s certainly plenty of visual interest, or more importantly, visual matter-of-factness. I’ll feel what my body feels, which means I’ll direct my mind away from itself and toward the gift of physicality.

I did this on that walk. I stopped everything and just took it all in. Fortunately, the planes had paused their commute, and the chainsaws had quieted. All I heard was a handful of birds chirping and the soft sound of a thin breeze on the leaves. My whole body sank into ease. Yes, the forest had just gone through suffering, and yes, it still existed in its regularly scheduled peace.

I stood for a bit, took in a final sigh, then made my way home. I reminded myself that hardship will come, will pass, will deliver us back to stasis, will teach. We’re just like a forest. We stand tall and drink the sun, then one day we lie down for good.

My husband has been a World Cup devotee of late, stationed in front of the television promptly when it’s game time. I joined him the other evening. Every time I watch competitive sports, I feel two things: joy for the winner and compassion for the loser. Both experiences are such a big part of sports, which you really understand once you’ve participated in one. It’s part of the deal.

The game I watched went both ways, each team on top for a time. Then the game delivered a verdict, and the screen showed the elation of the winning players and staff, not to mention fans. I waited, as I will, to see the other team, the one who had downturned faces and slow-moving feet. For whatever reason, I always want to send my condolences through the airwaves. So, I do, and I did.

It was like the condolences I gave to the trees in the woods. If the electricity of my feelings does go out into the air and land on the shoulders of those who need it, that would be great, but I know that’s more for a piece of sci-fi. Instead, I guess we can be a collective of people who both support those who have fallen and celebrate those standing tall.

In professional sports, I know these are the best athletes in the world at any given time. They expect to lose sometimes. In the forests, the trees expect to fall from storms — in my sci-fi thinking. For anything here on earth, this is how it is — high/low, win/lose, laugh/cry, fight/accept. It’s all part of the deal.

Interestingly, Oliver Burkeman and Robert Waldinger were both thinking similar things in their recent email newsletters to me. Or maybe that’s why I’m thinking about all this now.

As my local area continues to clean up the hit from the storm, I see the regular flow of things return. As I continue to join my husband in watching the World Cup, I take in the excitement of this most famous of sporting events. I remind myself how the world works, to the extent that I understand it. I whisper thank you to the way of things — to the struggle and most definitely to the calm forest on a sunny day.

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May the rest of your week be a good one, friends. Thanks, always, for stopping by.