|
Copyright © Louis Schmier and Atwood Publishing.
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 12:27:40 -0500 (EST)
Random Thought: That Miserable, Magnificant Magnolia Tree
I was cooling off by the fish pond with a freshly brewed cup of
coffee this morning. There is still a pinching nip in the air this
pre-spring dawn. A bird somewhere in the branches was singing in a
punctuated two-note repetitive group of fives what sounded like "pretty,
pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty."
As I was watching the soothing rhythmic ballet of the koi and
listening to the hypnotic sounds of the water falls, my eyes drifted to
the right back corner of the pond. There, not three feet from its edge,
stands that miserable, magnificent towering magnolia tree. For some
reason I started staring at it, admiringly wondering about it.
There is a huge story about that huge tree. When we first moved
into the house nearly thirty years ago, the back yard was unkept, overrun
by a myriad of what we call scrub oak saplings. In the middle was a three
foot magnolia
a sapling. I wanted to pull it our with the rest as I cleared a portion
of the yard. Susan wouldn't let me. It was an omen of things to come.
As the magnolia grew in height, so did my misery over it. It now stands a
majestic thirty-five feet. It's branches cast a dark shady umbrella over
the pond. Did I say "majestic?" Now, until recently, that is a word I
never used when I looked at that tree. "Hateful" or "spiteful" would have
been better words
This morning I thought of the many times over the years I cursed
that tree, denounced it as a dirty tree because of the huge amounts of
denuding and suffocating hand-size leaves it would drop in the autumn.
Many was the time over the past twenty-five years I salivated at the
thoughts of taking a chain saw to it only to find that it had my angelic
Susan as its champion.
"It never blooms," I would scream as I struggled to unlock the
chain she had used to tie herself to the tree's trunk. "It has never
bloomed. It doesn't bloom. It will never bloom,"
"How do you know."
"Because I am the gardener around here!"
Next, I tried reason. "It needs sun, but it's too shaded by the
pines and oaks." That didn't work.
"You won't touch it," she commanded as if I was some
anti-environment logger about to clear cut an old growth forest.
When I built the pond, there defiantly stood that blasted tree. I
could have sworn I heard it smirk as I received orders to dig around that
it or not dig it out at all. "Don't," warned my beautiful Greenpeace
watchdog, "'accidentally' cut any big roots and kill it." Do you know how
much extra work that gave me, especially since I had to dig out the pond
by hand?
Then, three years ago, it happened. It was a balmy spring morning
after I built the pond and then had to build a "whatever" (I always forget
what it's called) over it to protect the fish from being incessantly
bombarded by the dark brown, crinkled missiles the tree threw into the
pond. I was crossing the patio headed for a mediative chat with the fish
in the pond. I looked up at that blight with a cursing sneer. I angrily
thought that the tree, knowing it was protected, always spitefully thumbed
its branches at me. At that moment I thought I saw something, a shape and
color I had never seen. My eyes strained in the dim dawning lit. Darn if
it there wasn't something there. No it couldn't be. But, it was. Hidden
way high in the crown of the tree ONE secretive white flower peeked out
from its green camouflage. I stared. At that moment, a dark blight became
a beautiful light. I forgot my anger with that runaway from a landfill. I
was so excited that I ran into the house. Tempting the fates and willing
to brave inevitable tirade of invectives that would come, I woke my
sleeping Susan, dragged her outside in her nightshirt, grabbed her
reluctant head and pointed it skyward, and I pointed with a desperate and
excited "don't you see it" gesture.
We both stood there not believing what we were seeing.
"I see it! Wow!!" Then, an I'm-going-to-get-even-for-
all-the-aggravation--you-gave-over-this-tree impish smile appeared on her
face. "See. I told you so." Oh, did she rub it in.
"I guess," making a sheepish stab at some defense, "it's soaking
up the fertilizer I'm feeding the elephant ears, lillies, hosta, and ferns
around the pond."
"All you had to do was feed it?? And you wanted to cut it down,"
little miss agriculturalist gleefully admonished me with an accenting
wagging finger, "Oh, you of little faith. You had it set in your mind to
cut the tree down and wouldn't see it any other way. So, there. Feed
it!!"
"Yes, ma'am."
Well, to make a long story short, the next year the tree bore
about fifteen blooms. Last year it had double that number. And, in my
eyes that hateful, dirty hunk of wood is now a magnificent flowering thing
of beauty.
Looking at that tree, now that I think about this morning, I see
how it stands as a monument to a bunch of lessons. The more I think about
it, the more insights and lessons I find about success, failure, attitude,
change. Six or Seven quick ones will do for now. First, one positive
dream is more powerful than an untold number of realities. Second, when I
watch a tree, I can see either falling leaves or budding flowers. It's my
choice. Third, there are secrets in silence and in activity. Fourth, a
little difference can make a whole lot of difference. Fifth, don't become
a hostage to past attitudes. Sixth, I made the mistake about that tree a
friend and learned from it. And finally, there's nothing wrong or weak
about changing your attitude and actions.
No different when we teachers are looking at a student, is it.
|
|