Lessons in Tenacity

When it comes to survival, our cultivated gardens and the wilder nature around us can, if we watch for them, provide many lessons in hanging on.  I was reminded of that this week when I passed by this incredibly tenacious tree, seemingly growing out of the bedrock.  It stands on the edge of a ridge leading from my backyard to the pond.    The primeval seabed of the Flint Hills is exposed by erosion and time on these ridges and, in places, the rock itself becomes porous with holes as the lichens eat them away.  Often, those holes become pots for the germination of wind-blown plants who trade the inconveniences of the cramped position for protection from prairie fires.  This tree has been growing here for a decade, untouched by fire after fire, until it has now filled the hole that birthed it.

I feel, in this time of quarantine, a kinship with this tree, a bond forged by the urge of life to grow and expand despite the constraints around it.  My adherence to stay-at-home edicts from local "authorities"  suffers from both my lack of paranoia about catching the virus and my lack of faith in those authorities.  I do wear a mask in public, despite knowing the science and all-the-time wondering why I bother.  Running "crucial" errands, the number of which expands exponentially with my cabin fever, I often think of the quote on my office refrigerator at work, purportedly from Marilyn Monroe, which reads "Ever notice that 'what the hell' is always the right answer?"  Yes, I recognize that subscribing to guidance from a woman who tragically passed away in the fullness of life may not be the wisest choice. It is, however, more satisfying, and soul-serving than listening to nonstop gloom and doom from the news.  

Yes, I'm running risks daily, but I, like this tree, know instinctively that every day of life brings risks that we must face in order to flourish.  A deep core of fatalism helps me in that regard. I might catch coronavirus today and die next week. I might also get broadsided by a semi-truck on my way home from work.  Neither is really that likely.  I've watched this tree, an elm, grow for years, steadfast in the face of wind, fire and storm.  To have grown this tall, this broad, it must already have once pierced completely through this layer of rock, allowing the roots to reach more fertile soil around it.  Now it faces another challenge and I'm intrigued by what happens next for it.  Will the tree die, girdled by the constraints of its environment?  Will the rock yield, split or dissolved by the irrepressible forces of life? 

Time will tell, both for the tree and for us.  Will we wither now, paralyzed by fear of the world outside our holes, or will we grow on, breaking the barriers and pushing against the sky?  Me, I'm betting on life and the spirit of this tree.  Staying in the hole is not an option.  

Elm Excogitation

I took a walk today, a "noon constitutional" as it might have been termed in another more gracious age.  I took a walk and strode in a single instant from complacency to sorrow, contentment to loss.  From sunlight into the shade of a massive American elm was only a few steps for a man, but a mile for my mindset.

As gardeners we all, I'm sure, know of the previously ubiquitous American Elm and the disastrous impact of Dutch Elm disease on the species.  Intellectually, we understand that the American Elm (Elmus americana) was a valued tree in the landscapes of the 19th and early 20th centuries, so-called "tabernacles of the air."  Viscerally, however, gardeners of my age have no memories of a cool picnic under the elms or the spreading chestnuts of history.  Our blood does not stir from loss of such things as we've never experienced.

On this 96ºF sunny day, however, I ambled to the K-State Gardens and, passing under the massive canopy of its surviving and much-pampered American Elm, was instantly struck by the stark drop in temperature and stress I experienced.  If it wasn't 20 degrees cooler under the tree than in the sun, then I'm a mange-ridden gopher.  I understand now, acutely and intimately, what civilization lost when DED was "accidentally" introduced through the hubris of man.  The K-State Gardens elm was planted in 1930, is currently 60' tall, and requires $1000 injections to prevent Dutch Elm every 2.5 years.  While it seems presently healthy, I'm not encouraged for its long-term survival, knowing that administrators and politicians inevitably appropriate every possible dollar for their own pet projects and needs. 

In our callous daily existences, we don't often emotionally feel the tragic loss of a unique species of rainforest frog, or the potential extinction of a subspecies of rhinoceros, but you CAN come to K-State and experience with me the last years of the American Elm.  Echoing and borrowing the sentiment from an excellent essay by astrophysist Dr. Adam Frank that I read this week, I would say that the Earth will survive, but the Elm may not.  The Anthropocene HAS arrived and we should perhaps better start to contemplate that our time is measured, just as the elm's.