I'm stumped
Of all the holidays celebrated here, the one I typically enjoy the most is the symbolic start of a new year. While I am eager to leave 2021 behind, I must confess that the struggles we’ve been enduring and must continue to bear do not inspire very much excitement for 2022. My December was especially rotten, and the stink lingers this January.
I didn’t manage to write anything last month, and the failure to meet my self-imposed goal of a monthly post is just one more straw on an already heavy pile of frustrations and disappointments. Rational-me says, “It’s totally understandable, and really, what does it matter? No one expects this of you but you…Relax.” But the meaner voice in my mind scolds that I am not driven enough, I do not have enough creative capacity, if I couldn’t manage to write 12 low-stakes articles in the span of a year, what hope do I have of ever making writing a major component of my career?
Today I am laid up in bed because I threw my neck out by slipping on ice last week (ain’t growing up grand?). With plenty of time to ruminate on the December post that wasn’t, I realized that it’s a good thing I never published it. I had planned to explore tree death, with questions like: do trees die of “old age,” and if so what’s the upward age limit? Under ideal circumstances, could a tree theoretically live forever or is cell death an inevitability awaiting every living thing? While I set out to prove the [admittedly dark] point that nothing lasts, I ended up being reminded that life is incredibly resilient and adaptable, and even the “end” isn’t really an end, just a transition to a new form.
Let me back up a little bit and point out that life for a tree can be a real crapshoot from the get-go. Pollination relies on so many factors aligning, as does seed dispersal. Those that land in a spot with favorable conditions must then contend with the fact that they are rooted in place, and are out of luck if things change for the worse. Even though humans have the luxury of moving around, I would argue that we are just as vulnerable to environmental and biological forces. For example, I developed idiopathic scoliosis in my teens, a mutation passed down in my father’s DNA, and as such, I am susceptible to backaches and spinal injuries. As I gingerly tilt my sore neck to look out of the window, I see a Northern Red Oak whose trunk is curved in a gentle S shape, just like my vertebrae. At some point in its adolescence, it was likely outpaced by a neighboring fir tree which cast too much shade, so the oak grew at an angle for a few years before it gained on the fir again and righted itself. I take that as an encouraging metaphor.
A few yards to the oak’s left is a Red maple stump. The tree was felled years ago, but like the Hydra monster, several dozen new shoots have erupted from the severed base, ready to become replacement trunks. If I let them grow, would it technically be a new tree or a resurrected version of the original tree? Another stump nearby, an American Beech, is clearly rotting and thoroughly colonized by fungi, yet several suckers all in a neat line are pushing their way up, originating from a root of the tree that no longer stands, but still lives? I’m not sure.
Tree senescence - the loss over time of a cell's power of division and growth, leading to deterioration - is a tricky thing to try to observe. If I were to set up a scientifically rigorous study with the appropriate controls and test variables, it’s likely that the seeds I plant today would outlive me and I would be unable to consistently monitor their lives from start to finish. If we focus instead on observing trees that are already dead, it almost always appears that an external force was responsible for their demise: weather damage, pests, fungal infection, insufficient resources (light, water, nutrients), etc. But this is not so dissimilar to humans; as we age, we become more susceptible to environmental stresses and dying of “natural causes” usually means our bodies could no longer withstand them.
Eternally perfect conditions for growth are just not realistic, for any being, so I suppose it’s not really worth theorizing whether a living thing could be immortal. Instead, I’m trying to shift my focus, marveling at the ways in which energy and matter cycle onward, constantly regenerating, changing form and frequency, imbuing this earth with the persistent force that we call life (even when conditions are less than ideal).
Fingers crossed for a better year, full of healthy growth. Thank you all for reading.