My Neighbor's Tree

A few weeks ago, we had some pretty heavy storms come through where I live. Lots of thunder, eventually lots of rain, but at first a whole lot of wind.

My wife and I regularly will take walks through our neighborhood; there are some fun trails nearby, and we'll spend the time talking, planning, and enjoying each other's company.

My wife especially enjoys stormy weather. On these sorts of days, she'll open all the windows in our home, and let everything the storm touches – the air, the sounds of the rain and wind, the smells, they all flow into our home. So with these recent storms, with a wind storm preceding the rain, they were quite literally the "perfect storms" according to my wife. In other words, to her, this was perfect "walk weather". So we started out the door, not knowing how far we'd be able to get on a quick walk, before the rain started to come down. That was when I noticed our neighbor's tree.

Overhanging our driveway, from our neighbor's yard, sits a large Oak tree. If you've ever been around an Oak in the Fall or Spring, you'll know about the little "brown crumbly things" called "catkins" that grow and then fall out, en masse. When they fall, the catkins get everywhere, and cover everything. I'll fill lawn bags with what falls out of this Oak tree, into our yard and onto our driveway. It usually doesn't bother us much; my wife and I will mostly joke about it – that our neighbor ought to be paying us for all the raking of their tree's debris that I always seem to be doing, that sort of thing. What is unavoidably awful about the tree is the pollen.

So when we walked out the door to begin our storm walk, this tree really caught my attention, but specifically how much the tree was swaying in the heavy gusts and winds, right over our driveway, right where our cars were parked. This Oak tree's swaying was so ominous to me – I became really worked up over it. I convinced myself that this storm was it, this was the storm where my salutary neglect of the "property line" would come to fruition in one of those Oak tree's limbs snapping off and landing on one our cars. Albeit was a short walk before the rain, I spent it ruminating and pouting over this swaying Oak tree.

The tree limbs did not snap. Our cars were not crushed.

Fast forward to today, I needed to mow our lawn. Lately, it has been scorching, really hot, really humid. To make it worse, it had rained yesterday evening, and the ground was still mushy and damp, but today was the only time I'd have to mow for the next week. As I walked outside, I could feel the humidity pressuring into me, weighing down my clothes, magnifying the sun beating down on me. I marched back and forth across the lawn, pushing the mower, periodically emptying the clippings into lawn bags, hauling each bag to the curb, becoming increasingly drenched in sweat, all the while as I passed back and forth, noticing our neighbor's Oak tree.

Ever since that windy night, I had been a sort of curmudgeon when it came to our neighbor's Oak tree. I would think to myself "Why don't they cut that tree back? Don't they see how far it hangs into my yard?". Or "I shouldn't have to spend so much of my time cleaning up after this tree." This Oak tree was my imposition.

Nevertheless, the final stage of the mow was the section of our yard on the opposite side of our driveway, the side of our yard adjacent to our neighbor's yard, the side mostly underneath our neighbor's Oak tree. I started my trudge, and was soon underneath its canopy, as it covers almost this entire section of our yard.

It was as if I had walked into another season. Underneath its canopy, it was cool – refreshing. I breathed deep on each pass, each time feeling my sweat-drenched shirt cling to my chest, each pass feeling cooler and cooler, melting away the mow's heat. I wrapped up this final stage of the mow in the heavenly shade of my neighbor's Oak tree. I emptied the final bag of clippings, and sat down at the base of my long-limbed friend.

I looked up into its canopy, the light refracting and spreading all through its leaves and branches. Just then, the day blew its first small breeze. My neighbor's Oak tree gently swayed.

Perhaps I had this tree all wrong.