Versus Artificial \

The mountain alder lying in the lake connects me at last to the otters by hiding my approach until I am upon them, until we are eye to eye, and ready to fight over the fish she has caught, on a plate with steamed vegetables, my hands around a wine glass stem and bleeding inappropriate jokes like an old carburetor burning leaded gas. This is how fast the next christmas party is upon us, so much that I forget the restaurant owner is coming by my office a day later to work on a proposal we developed, and I could have at least asked for a coupon, or better yet, have him come to our table and feign marvel, maybe ask me to sign his copy of my book and offer grandiloquently in front of the guests, THIS NEXT BOTTLE'S ON THE HOUSE, FRANK! WHAT ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

The holidays blend so well that I never really know what is happening until I am out the door with my briefcase on a Saturday and on Monday I am unwrapping presents before the tree's even gone up. Our poor tree. God, our poor tree.

I am superstitious in every part of me that used to be fervent, and we have committed to doing something I fear will doom me to a path made entirely of mother-breaking cracks. When we moved into this house, the first thing I built was a fence and the second, a garden. I carefully plotted every detail, like what would grow where, and even how the flowers would make me feel, how many slices I would cut out of that first cucumber, how soon after the first frost I would do a book report on ancient harvest rites. Three funny looking sprouts grew between the garlic and the kale and the parsley.

One was a cottonwood tree. And it quickly outgrew my expectations, adding a knock on the door from the FAA to my usual dreams of losing my teeth or showing up to work in my underwear. The next year, it added an additional 5 hat sizes, and over the winter I cut it back, and cut and cut, hoping to create the impression of a 200 year old bonsai. It produced a single leaf the next spring and died.

The second was a big leaf maple, and I tied her down to the swing set, and to this day she grows along the curvature of the earth, saving my garden sun for a time when we might actually need it to feed us. She attracts thatch ants, who bite me at every instance, but I won't cut her, because she is larger than life and only tiptoes within the garden, and her leaves have blocked out our view of the neighbors, at least for 8 months of the year. Good fences make good neighbors. Good trees make fences better.

The third, a Douglas Fir. It has grown slowly these past 6 years, and as we deal with the realization that this will be our last Christmas in this house, where we added a daughter and a dog to our kohlrabi and nasturtium collections, so we deal with the prospect of cutting down this evergreen, adorning it with lights and ornaments, setting one last set of presents underneath it. Bringing it into our house, out of the cold, not abandoning it to the new owners, who will surely cut it down, how out of place and awkward it sits in the yard. Mercy, mercy me.

It is tall enough and full enough to make a fine christmas tree, though the trunk is small enough to get your hand around, so that killing it will remind me of a time I went deer hunting as a teenager, seeing another hunter emerge from the forest with a freshly shot fawn draped over his shoulders. One red spot among the white.

I still cannot believe the mountain alder is gone. I have run this trail around the lake so many times that I know when to sidestep the bare roots of individual trees, unconsciously stretch out my fingertips to brush the bare trunk whenever I pass a madrona, jump just before mile 1.7 where an overhanging cedar branch is at the ideal height to lift myself away from a rabid dog or protective bear.

It seems like such an effort to simply accept that which I cannot change regardless. People rarely forgive you from trying, even when your defense is the inevitability of it all.

One of our volunteers lost her husband over the summer, and they were married for over 40 years. His voice still graces the answering machine, sober now what once was cheerful. "If we are not here, we are there. Please leave a message," the old voice says. She said she probably won't change the greeting.

I'm curious to know if she'll have an artificial tree.