FALLEN TREE

There was a tree lying across the road the other day. It had come down in the storm. We braved the winds to go and take a look.

Not too close a look of course. The other trees were still creaking in the wind. Sammy was worried that we’d be suddenly squished, but I didn’t think it all that likely. Meanwhile the fallen tree was like a hedge spanning pavement to pavement. Cars were turning back, presumably on both sides; we couldn’t see the other.

Today, they’ve cut it up and piled the bits on the side of the road. Snapped wood, sawn, fresh white inside the trunk. And of course, piles of spruce, poking between curiously angled stumps and branches.

It smelled magnificent. It was a sort of piney, Christmassy wetness, a petrichor of fresh ferns and branches that was earthy and clear, mountain fir and snow, lake water and ice. I loved it. The storm damage had become a Council problem; the tree surgeon’s task had reduced it to brokenness, and the brokenness had caused an aroma of wonder, even as that tree had died.

I have got to start letting go of stuff. I’ve thought this year - not as a New Year’s resolution or anything, but just as a reflection. Storms happen, our dreams get snapped and collapse across the road. But somehow in the dealing of it, in the dismantling of a thing that once grew, there can still be another beautiful purpose, and a joy unforeseen.