Saying Goodbye
What we can save and what we cannot
Firstly, I want you to know this pains me. We’ve talked about it before, theoretically, but now it’s real. Now it can’t be avoided. And I feel sick about it.
In Picabo, I named all my trees. Each one was planted by me, from the first bare root red maple that I named Scarlet all the way to the grand, white-blossomed non-fruit-bearing crabapple named Grandma, which held the honored place in the yard’s center.
But I haven’t named the trees here in Selinunte, the trees that surround my house. They were planted maybe 25 years ago by my neighbor when renovating the property from a toll booth (where folks lived to lift the gate so the train could pass) into four separate suites for tourists visiting his agriturismo.
Here is what the house looked like then and what it looks like now:
All those cacti around the fence, while overgrown, are a good deterrent for anyone who might want to check out the house uninvited. So much so that we are having the gardener move a misplaced cactus (currently under two trees) over to the side of the front gate – the one space where someone could potentially jump the fence.
Here’s the cactus desperate for more light, and here’s the space that will be its new home:
Nice, right? This little guy will now have a place of prestige AND some company!
Those trees on both sides of the cactus? Those are Ficus macrophylla, also known as the Moreton Bay Fig or Australian banyan. While this tree is native to eastern Australia and not to Sicily, it has nonetheless become ubiquitous to the island. Known for reaching an impressive size (keep that in mind), it has roots that descend from the branches and which can become quite big themselves, eventually providing support to the tree. These roots can also eventually strangle the host tree as they grow down and become their own independent trees. For this, the tree is also known as a Strangler Ficus.
We have 5 of these trees in our yard, two in front and three in back. I’m sure when our neighbor was renovating, he was just trying to fill the space. And really, they are beautiful trees.
Here’s the problem: one of our trees was planted much too close to the water cistern and the septic tank. The water cistern is not the well. The cistern holds water we pay for, is less contaminated, and brought in on a truck. And when I say, “too close,” I mean about four feet or 140 cm. Close enough for the roots to break through.
As you can see, these roots were not in the cistern 2 1/2 years ago….
The tree is growing. And it will continue growing.
Have you guessed where this is headed?
Are you already shaking your head or murmuring no no no no…?
Here’s what we’d love to do: we’d love to move it. There’s no room on our property but surely someone might want it. Right?
Our gardener says, “There is a remedy for everything… but saving the tree would be impossible.” Certainly we expected him to say it would be a massive project and very expensive, but impossible? No. How can that be?
I appealed to him again after the Pope died. In honor of the Pope, I said, who preached that all of nature needed to be honored and cared for, please, can we find some alternative to cutting it down?
“The whole world is in mourning,” he responded. “But there is no alternative.”
Here’s what I think: Maybe Sicilians just don’t know how to move a tree and/or don’t have the equipment. Or at least maybe our gardener doesn’t know how or isn’t able to find the resources.
If you’re thinking, “well, just get a different gardener,” yeah, that’s not how things work here. This is a small town. (Selinunte is, at least, and they consider themselves quite separate from Castelventrano even if technically they are under the same jurisdiction.) Everyone knows each other. Carlo is our gardener. Carlo who, btw, works full-time as a landscaper in Selinunte park, the largest archeological park in all of Europe. One would think if anyone could find resources for moving a tree, it would be him.
So here we are.
In mourning. Cherishing my last week with this beautiful tree.
Tell me, what would you do?
Also, please let me know if you’ve ever had to cut down a tree. Your experience may help me. I do understand that the roots will continue to suck water and possibly even grow for some time. (This makes me wail. If that isn’t indicative of life trying to save itself, what is?)
I subtitled this “What we can save and what we cannot” but that doesn’t feel honest. The truth is that we’ve prioritized our house and our convenience over the life of this tree. I mean, I suppose if I absolutely said no way, this tree’s life is the priority, then we would build a new cistern, right?
Hermann Hesse wrote:
Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. . . .
Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.
A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.
(these are excerpts from his writing and all emphasis are mine)
If I could afford it, I would move the cistern. Moving a tree is expensive too.
I would move the cistern, save this beautiful tree! Yes I’ve had an enormous tree cut down, a very mature Douglas Fir.
It abutted against the backyard deck and was a hazard in a windstorm. I hated having to cut it down.