Of Tributes and Trees

This magically appeared in my Dropbox yesterday. After the tree planting ceremony a couple of weeks ago various friends asked me what kind of a tree had been planted in Dan's honor. I was at the ceremony, saw the tree, took a picture of it--but I had no idea, really. Some kind of evergreen, I said.

So it's a deodar. One of my favorite trees, though I've never seen a young one, which I guess is why I couldn't put a name to it. In adulthood, deodars are massive beings with spreading branches that seem like arms, ready to envelop everything. I fell in love with them decades ago when my children began attending a school whose campus was graced with nearly century old deodars. And the only Christmas attraction that I truly love is Christmas tree lane in Altadena. I've even blogged about it. Really, click on that Altadena link and look at the photo. At Christmastime the trees are hung with colored lights, and people walk silently in the dark or drive two miles an hour with their headlights off under the spell of those trees. The street is as  hushed and holy as any church.

When Dan and I took walks together, he always seemed impressed because I knew the names of trees and flowers. When I moved from the San Gabriel Valley to the beach, I took on i.d.-ing birds, and he would always listen while I explained how to tell a long-billed curlew from a whimbrel or a marbled godwit. How did I know these things, he'd ask as if I were some sort of naturalist genius. I've always thought that because I'm a writer, it's just my job to know.

Anyhow. A deodar.
And two Christmases ago, there he was.
My mom looks about a million years older now.
Well, so do I.

The Grief Report

This is the tree The National Tai Chi Chuan Association, in coordination with the Bronson Canyon Tai Chi Group, requested from the Griffith Park Forestry Division, (Trees In Tribute)  dedicated to Dan Paik.

This is life at the bottom of the crater of grief.

Your feet are on the ground, but the ground is not to be trusted. The crater of grief is a funnel and sometimes the ground falls out from under you. Like maybe you got confused and poured rice into a funnel instead of a strainer to wash it, and the next thing you know the grains of rice are slipping out of the hole in the funnel and there is no bottom to anything, just the sound of your dinner slipping away.

You are always surprised at how permanent the loss is and how far reaching. Months go by and still the beloved is gone. Your eyes open in the morning and still he's not there. The phone rings at the appointed hour, but still it's not him. You go places you nearly forgot that the two of you went together--and the sudden sadness creates a roaring in your ears. The erosion continues as the  crater encompasses more and more of your world. There are so many places that he isn't. So many places that he will never be.

This is life at the bottom of the crater of grief.

The world narrows at the bottom of the crater of grief. Friends who are not really friends fall away. While friends who are really friends join hands and hold back the collapsing sides of the crater. And at the bottom of the crater of grief,  the sky is a tent of stars or an umbrella of blue. When your are at the bottom of the crater of grief, if you remember to look up, what you see is sky. Pure unadulterated sky.

I didn't notice the San Pedro Street trees at first. The jacarandas are blooming, and Little Tokyo is stealing the show, ringed by the jacarandas' purple curtain. The trees on San Pedro street are not in blossom. They do not tower over the people on the sidewalks or reach up to the windows, but these trees on San Pedro Street are giants of possibility. I learned about them from a student of mine at the DWC. A tree saved her life once. You can watch for her story on the Trees on San Pedro Street Project blog.

A Sad Day for Trees

Satan's wind roared through out neighborhood last night. The power went out at midnight. This morning we woke to a trickle of water pressure because the power outage took out power at a pumping station.

It was a bad day for cars, too. But C., who loves her old car, took the news like a champ. And then went to work sawing the tree branch to free her car.

She has the shoes for the job. I suppose I might have delivered emergency water by horseback--if I had a horse.

The park was a strange and sad sight; all the vibrant huge trees on the ground while this one stood tall.

But there was joy, too.

If palm fronds were viable building materials, Los Angeles could become the land of palaces.