Things We’re Enjoying: “That Tree”
Originally published in 2013 for Scapegoats and Panaceas.
There’s a small park in Madison, Wisconsin, no larger than a city block, that’s been one of my favorite places to go since I moved to the city nearly a decade ago. There’s much to recommend the old park: the cozy houses surrounding it on all sides; the curving path that traverses it diagonally; the modest, unassuming gazebo.
But the primary reason this park is better than all the others is because there is one particular tree there—a tree that, for some reason, has captured my affection. It is tall, and elegant, and for me it is unlike any other tree.
Those who think of the term “tree hugger” as derogatory have obviously never had this experience of finding that one special tree that inexplicably draws them.
Why do I come back to this one tree, again and again, going out of my way to pass by it, gaze up at it, anytime I cross that city block? It could be its size, towering above the others; or its stately shape—the dignity with which it stands there.
It could be the intimation of a long, intricate history—the sense that it’s witnessed all the changes to that city block, told and untold, spanning backward in time beyond the oldest memories of any of the block’s human inhabitants.
It’s no embarrassment to fall in love with a tree—and I’m not the only one to have done so. Recently, I’ve been following the daily photographic dispatches of photographer Mark Hirsch, who for over a year now has been photographing one particular tree in southwestern Wisconsin and posting the images on a page called “That Tree.”
It took him nineteen years, passing by the tree without taking a single picture, but eventually he began to see it differently:
“At first it was just a tree in a cornfield. Then it became this entity that I grew to respect for its precarious existence and its longevity. Then I began to recognize its role as the source of life, food, habitat and protection for so many other plants and animals living within its little realm. Kind of like a mother in the forest.
“Having spent so much time with her, I felt a communal relationship with her as a silent friend. I cannot drive by ‘That Tree’ now without glancing down to be sure she is still safely standing there.”
If you’ve never fallen in love with a tree before, I highly recommend it. And if long distance relationships do it for you, you might consider falling in love, via daily photographs, with “That Tree” in southwestern Wisconsin.