Taking the tree for a walk
December into January, plants into plant food
Sometimes I like to go out of my way; to find a task that could be completed in less than a minute and to carry it in the opposite direction of efficiency and convenience, and to meditate for awhile on what I’m actually doing and what it means to the neighborhood/city/world/universe around me.
The falling snow and quiet streets of this past Saturday morning provided a perfect opportunity for one of these exercises: I would carry our Christmas tree to the nearest mulching location. It was only about four feet tall and didn’t seem to drink much of its water, so it wasn’t heavy. And the Mulchfest (a city-sponsored program whereby old Christmas trees are chipped into mulch for use in parks) drop-off location was a little less than a mile away. Still, I could have simply kicked it to the curb and hoped that DSNY would pick it up before a garbage truck did. Instead, I opted to keep this little tree company on its way to the chipper.
We (the tree and I) passed by a corner storefront which for years stood apparently abandoned, except for the happily neglected snake plants which lined the window sills. These were later replaced by pink curtains, always drawn, which eventually faded to gray. I remember a hand-written sign on the door for several years which stated simply “I am at the basement.” I often imagined a solitary figure sitting inside — lights off, smoking a cigarette and listening to the radio, deciding to water the plants some other time. . . Today this corner’s mystery has been cleared away, its storefront gutted and renovated into a typical “prime retail opportunity” which likely won’t cause anyone to wonder what’s going on behind those curtains.
As with almost every other neighborhood in the city, mine has a fair amount of high rise condominiums popping up like giant rectangular glass weeds and the piles of discarded fir trees outside these places was impressive. I considered grabbing another one but they were all much larger than mine, and dragging a giant Christmas tree down the sidewalk with one hand might have attracted more attention than I was seeking, though my own footprints were as yet the only ones disturbing the fluffy white carpet of snow.
In my headphones, Brendel was playing Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage, but a new sound began to creep in, like iron fingers scraping and pushing a massive chalkboard on broken wheels through a wind tunnel: the 7 train. I’ve read somewhere that one of the qualities of good music is its ability to deal with inevitable unwanted noise in a graceful way, and now the blend of train and piano was a satisfying accidental mashup for an eerie snowfall in a world of concrete. And while on the subject of renewal, recycling, and general new-ness, let me take a moment to thank Alfred Brendel for being a musician who has led me to composers (like Liszt) that I used to think had nothing to offer me. Brendel’s taste and beautifully transparent playing are like a very clean window. And if he tells you to look through that window, you’d be foolish not to.
Passing under the bridge and turning right onto Queens Plaza South, the sidewalk narrows, the sound of the cars above increases, and water drips down from unseen sources and bounces off the razor wire on the top of the fence. On any Saturday morning in an industrial neighborhood, it’s impossible to tell which buildings will be demolished in a week and which ones are just closed for the day. The triangular grand opening flags seemed to be at odds with the “for rent” sign on one particular place we passed. I switched my tree-holding hand.
I turned right again at 10th Street into GreenThumb’s mulchfest site, where not a lot seemed to be happening. Being careful not to fall on the frozen and uneven tire ruts, I made my way over to the pile of trees and gave my walking companion a quick farewell and a good toss toward a comfortable looking spot on the heap. There was a solitary worker approaching a pick-up truck as I was leaving, who must have been thinking “Who is this weirdo who has nothing better to do than trudge through the cold and personally drop off his tiny tree?” I raised my hand in a friendly wave as I went for the gate but he motioned me to come over, and I wondered if maybe I’d put my tree in the wrong place. But when he held out a green tote bag, I stopped wondering and gave him my thanks.
Inside the bag were some TreeCycle temporary tattoos and two GreenThumb winter program guides, but it made itself most useful a few minutes later when I picked up some groceries for breakfast. On the way home, I lost count of all the dirty plastic bags tangled in the bare branches of the sleeping trees.
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