Okay, so I’ve got a “thing” for trees. I’ll admit it. I always have, ever since I was a child.
The first thing I ever wrote in school was after a field trip to an Arboretum about what we saw and lichen on trees. As I got older, I spent many afternoons playing alone in nearby woods climbing trees and watching the world around me from my perch. I spent one particular afternoon in Andover, Massachusetts in a patch of woods surrounded by a field so gold that I nicknamed it Lothlorien after Tolkien’s fictional forest. I was so enchanted that many years later I referenced it in my first novel, “Lust for Danger.”
Although writing has always been my passion, in order to eat and pay the mortgage I took on a professional career in the high-technology arena. When I saw the amount of paper being wasted, I presented a comprehensive paper recycling program to my employer. This program was considered avant-garde for the early 90s and my advice was sought by the media and other companies in the Boston, Massachusetts area. I had no idea that what I was doing was considered “ground-breaking” at the time.
An article in Mother Earth News alerted me to a crisis in Hawaii – invaluable rain forest was going to be eradicated in order to tap a volcano for geothermal energy as well as conversion to other non-forest uses. I immediately offered my assistance to the Pele Defense Fund and began a massive campaign obtaining East Coast signatures on petitions to U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii. (In 2002, long after my involvement ended, a ruling was set to allow the Native Hawaiians to purchase the property, preserving it from development.)
My fascination with the rain forest is inexplicable – I’ve made it a goal to visit as many as possible during my lifetime. I’ve been fortunate enough to already experience their magic in British Columbia, Canada; the Olympic Peninsula of Washington; the Kenai on Alaska; Maui, Hawaii; and El Yunque, Puerto Rico. Hopefully, some day, I will see the Amazon.
Trees are what made me cross-over from the “dark side” of action-adventure spy novel writing to children’s books. I walked out into my yard one day to find my neighbor’s children beating my young trees with a baseball bat. Why would it even occur to anyone to do something like that? It was the second time I had caught them. I decided to take a different approach this time. I brought the lads into my backyard and showed them my 300 year old oak tree. “How can those little trees get to be this big if you hurt them? Did they do something bad to you?” I asked them.
It seemed to work. The boys stood dwarfed beneath the Mighty Oak, and I hope that they learned a new respect not only for trees, but all living things.
Shortly thereafter, the tree contracted “canker.” A severe drought the summer before had weakened and killed many area trees. Canker, according to the tree doctor, is incurable. He said the Mighty Oak could live another twenty years…there was no way to know.
I was devastated. I had originally purchased my home because of the water view, but had come to love the ancient oaks in my backyard even more. The Mighty Oak seemed to have a new visitor every week: snakes, birds, honey bees, woodpeckers, squirrels, herons, praying mantis, and raccoons. I couldn’t let this great tree disappear without paying it homage and preserving its memory for eternity.
I began photographing the tree nearly every day, in every light, with every type of wildlife coming and going. In less than one month, I wrote a children’s book loaded with those pictures. What better way to honor the tree than to use it to teach future generations?
Less than a year ago I left that Mighty Oak to move to a drier climate in the Inland Northwest. People ask me if I miss Maryland. I don’t. I miss my tree.
K.S. Brooks is an award-winning novelist and photographer, children’s book author, and guest blogger for CeliacChicks.com.