Upheaval

 I walked this morning through a woods on the shore and then threaded my way back home through our harborside neighborhood. The first time I’d walked since the cataclysmic windstorm of a few weeks ago, and the first time in more than a year I’d gone with the intention of pocketing something to muse about briefly in writing.

The woods was full of fallen soldiers, tall trees shot down by the wind. Damage to smaller ones was minimal, except for the ones the grandfathers had crushed as they fell. I observed the root systems the old trees threw up as they went, some as shallow as dried puddles, others having no more than a nub of a root at the base of the trunk, like rotten teeth just pulled from a gum. How did the trees stand so tall for so long, with so little to keep them upright?

The roots that interested me most belonged to tree that had not blown over. The earth seemed to have been sucked out from under its armpits; elsewhere the soil bulged like biceps.

I can only imagine what happened here: the wind had nearly pulled this tree from the earth like its fallen cousins. But this one had resisted; it sank back into position when the storm had passed. The wrenched earth remained as a testimony to the tree’s struggle in the wild air.

I have spent as many years with my feet on this earth as most of these downed trees. Sometimes my roots feel as shallow as theirs and it is howlingly clear to me how vulnerable I am. In these stormy times, so are the values I hold, and the country I live in.

I am spreading my arms and fingers wide, gripping this soil where woods, harbor, and neighborhood come together.

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