on trees and rootedness and loss

they took our ash tree down today.

for days we have watched as saws and a massive machine called an hydro ax have effortlessly erased decades old cottonwoods, the majestic guardians of our neighborhood. they are our companions. and without them it feels barren, exposed, as if we came from nowhere.

i expected to feel this loss somewhere deep inside my soul. as someone who spent much of my young life in flux, moving, saying goodbye, i have rather an affinity for the rootedness of trees. i suppose that is what i longed for most of all: to belong. i remember even in college there being a tree outside my window, and oh, how i loved that tree. it had what i did not -- permanent roots.

soon after we bought this house our neighbors informed us that a busy road would be going in next to us, destroying the little white house to our north and exchanging trees for concrete. i knew then i would cry. no matter that i'd not known these trees long or that they hadn't formed themselves as a backdrop to many memories. i knew it would be painful to me; roots gone.

then earlier this year my mother passed away. young, only 53. my roots uprooted, forever changed. my home (because aren't mothers our very first homes?) destroyed.

as the saws roared on wednesday, i felt as if i had been thrown into a real live metaphor for my life. my neighbors and i felt the shock as our streets were redefined, we questioned who we were now, who we would be. we absorbed the thud as our trees crashed to the ground. the visceral ripping as they tore apart, the finality of something so majestic laying when it was created to stand.

it was too much, there were tears, a heaviness.

and then i looked out and they were coming for my ash tree. it had no pink ribbon tied around it to signal it was to be destroyed, but three men in neon vests were determined. i rushed over, sick in my stomach. they said it had been hit by a limb of my neighbor's cottonwood this morning and had sustained damage. it had to go. they were cheery, matter of fact. what could i say. the city is responsible for trees on the boulevard, not me. but still it's mine, it feels mine. and before i could barely swallow his words, i watched it fall across my driveway. and within an hour be transformed into wood chips.

i'm numb. it's too much loss. and though i know it's just a tree, these trees are more than trees.