I ran by our old house today. They had
a fire going, smoke wafting from the chimney pipe. Over the fence, I
saw that the fig had grown at least another 10 feet, and I wondered
how long has it been.
The fig gave me such exasperated heart
ache while I was there. It was like a misunderstood teenager who had
discovered Sylvia Plath and fought desperately against my loving care
and patient understanding.
Its first year was so uneventful as to
both leave me perplexed by and, later, appreciative of, the eventual
breakdown. It branched into two twin trunks, but grew modestly and
straight, so quietly that I let it fall into the blind spot we
parents sometimes have for our model children, the ones who fool us
by their responsibility and maturity into false ease.
The sibling trunks had a falling out in
the second year, so much so that this family tree threatened to bring
down the neighboring vines. One morning, I stepped out onto the deck
with my coffee and through the rising steam saw that the smaller
trunk had thrown itself onto the ground, willing its leaves to claw
itself away from the other. Oh, can't have that, I thought, and Oh,
brother, there is no need for drama out here in my get away from it
all.
I twined up the moper to the model, and
by the end of the month they had rebelled in cahoots and thrown
themselves both down, nearly toppling the service berry, who in their
defense, was rapidly becoming my poorly hidden favorite. I tied them
both to the fence and said, 'There.'
Another year passed, and to my great
regret, I had washed my hands so cleanly of it that I was horrified
the next winter to see that the twine had eaten into their trunks,
and I ruefully cut the rope from their torsos, leaving obvious scars,
which they wielded at me like constant reminders. I am so sorry, I
said. I really was, too, but now I would never hear the end of it.
I wanted to argue that scars were very
hip at the time. They were having none of it. The moon is scarred,
too, you know. Not the compelling
mythology of heroic deed or spurned love jagged lines cut
flatteringly down a cheek, but pockmarked symmetry torn from the nose
and forehead and scalp. You can't win. No one gets doe-eyed over body
craters.
The
last year, I saw glimpses of a beautiful tree, with perhaps the
subtle threat of magnificent relapse. We ate the sum of her flowers,
and I caught myself drifting away from maternal vigilance. And then,
I abandoned the tree. Though I said out loud and often how proud I
was, it was still an abandonment.
It is
not my house, anymore, so I can only get so close. But I saw the tree
yesterday, and it had grown, nearly unrecognizable over these 3 and a
half years. Long and graceful and lovely and whole. Scarred and
dolorous and fragile and unbound. I don't know where to put my hands
anymore.
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