Interview 3 — On Learning How to Interview a Tree
The open path before me drew me onward, as paths have a funny way of doing. I felt called forward, the unexplored trail beckoning with promise of at least new questions, and hopefully answers as well. The Western Red Cedars I had tried to converse with faded into the background, and new potential interview subjects came into view.
The trail led me to the edge of a forest. I wondered aloud about how these trees might differ from the ones I had just interviewed. Being on the fringe between dense woods and open field, these border trees had a unique perspective on the world that their kin on either side of that divide only knew half of. Those living in the field grew up surrounded by the clarity of open air. They were free to stretch out in all directions, but perhaps knew some loneliness, towering islands in an open sea of tall grasses.
The trees which grow in the forest, on the other hand, were accustomed to the dark enclosure lent by their brothers and sisters. Competitive siblings twisted and turned over, around, through each other to reach for the sunlight, resulting in intricate curves and intertwined trunks. I was struck by the different lives trees even of the same species might live based on their environment, as well as by the fortune of those trees who grow along the border, who get to experience life on both sides of the tracks.
I sat for a while with one such tree. It stood maybe 15 feet tall. From its narrow trunk, spindly branches (so numerous and criss-crossed that they seemed countless) sprung out in all directions, making the entire form of the tree about as wide as it was tall. Within those branches hard, bright red berries nestled among grey bark and comingling mosses and lichens. Down below, a dank matting of leaves in varying states of brown and red, of dead and alive, coated the cold ground. I knelt down to investigate rotting leaves. As I looked closer, I could see some opportunistic mushrooms springing up from the soil amid the detritus.
Suddenly the scene took on a whole new identity for me, the tree’s narrative playing out before my eyes. I could see a young tree emerging from fertile soil in the warm sun of spring in Bellingham. Years of cycles of vibrancy and dormancy, as inch by inch, the tree grows. A tree soon old enough to produce hundreds of leaves, dropping its suncatchers one by one as they are torn free from their branches by biting autumn breezes. Leaves lying wet on the ground become a delicious meal for the decomposers of the deciduous — mushrooms move in and gorge themselves. The nutrients held within the leaves get broken down and returned to the soil, infusing the Earth with richness and the potential for new life. Eventually, the tree dies, and the ground once shaded by its gnarled branches is struck by new rays. A young tree emerges from fertile soil.
I pondered over how amazing it was that this little ecosystem was able to comprise a self-reciprocating network until my thoughts were shaken by a rustling from above. A squirrel was jumping from branch to branch, collecting berries from only the highest section of the tree. Why would he be doing this? There were plenty of berries much lower to the ground. Wasn’t it riskier to forage so high up? I figured there must be some squirrel logic within his tiny brain that was behind this behavior, but it was lost on me.
As I was watching the squirrel, I began to become more attuned to other sounds in the forest as well. I could make out several distinct bird calls, but theirs was a conversation in a language completely lost on me. I longed to know who these birds were, what they were talking about. I decided to move onward, deeper into the forest. As I did, I noticed that the trees here seemed to grow in cliques, like adolescents in a lunchroom, clinging to the comfort of their own kind. Again, I was filled with a sense of wonderment — why did they grow like this? Were the birches too cool to be seen growing alongside the firs? I knew of the concept of succession, that forests come about in a very certain way, but these details too were beyond my knowledge. Again, I longed to know — to know about the narrative of the forest, its story (and stories) from birth to death.
Walking through the forest in search of answers as a hopeful interviewer, I found myself presented with more questions instead. This in itself was an answer for me in a way though. I began to understand that the types of conversations I was trying to have were, by their nature, very different from what I had anticipated. Not only would they have to be with entire landscapes at once rather than just a lone tree, but they would also take place on a different time scale from the conversations I was used to. The narratives of landscapes tell their secrets in as much as one is equipped and willing to listen.
There is no such thing as an isolated moment of dialogue with a tree. On the contrary, there is a constant conversation going on all around us at all times — narratives unfolding, stories being shared, morals there to be gleaned. Taking part in the conversation is all a matter of attunement. Of opening our ears to the songs of the forest; of breathing in the fresh mists of a gray morning. The songs of birds, the scratchings of deer antlers on tree bark, the presence of old growth versus young trees, all tell countless stories which unfold within each moment and across days, seasons, decades.
