The Memory of Trees
JULY 26: I have two potted plants that sit on my window ledge. One is a ficus 'wiandi' which I bought when I first started working in New York. I bought it as a fake bonsai in Chinatown and kept it in my office on the desk under my reading lamp. And I was told that whenever I traveled away on vacation, someone very thoughtful came by in the afternoons to water it from a small plastic cup. Now that bonsai is two feet tall and definitely will not be mistaken for a bonsai. I also have a variegated Arboricola (Schefflera) or what we call five fingers, which Wennie had gifted me with when I first moved into myapartment in Manhattan. She said it was a goodluck plant and so far it has worked wonders with me.
Tonight as I came home and lifted my window to ventilate my room (and skip the air-conditioning) the rain began pouring outside. I looked at my potted plants and decided to give them a feel of the rain for once. I lifted the screen and put them out onto the floor of the fire escape.
Then as I returned to my desk next to he window and worked on my notebook, I glanced outside and watched as my plants were getting their first rain-bath since my ownership. When the raindrops fell on them, the small leaves fluttered and then they had what seemed like this dance of joy.
I was watching this for a while and remembered how the trees outside my window back home in the Philippines did the same whenever it rained after a long and punishing summer. And how like this moment in Manhattan, I had sat on my desk and would get distracted from what I was doing to watch the trees embrace the heavenly outpouring as a reprieve from some punishing ordeal.
One thing about living in Manhattan or in any city for that matter is that you do not have life with trees. The cosmospolitan life is about being surrounded by cement, concrete, glass and steel. Only now and again there would be pockets of green. My apartment faces a small park with trees lining up the avenue that I hardly notice except in the autumn when it turns bright red and fall or in the spring when they start to green again. Also because it is across a wide four lane avenue.
I am used to being enveloped by lots of trees. At home I would be woken from my weekend sleep by the loud singing of the maya (housewren) birds. When I lived in a condo in Makati with Nicole, the old Greenbelt Park was right across from us.
Tonight, I realized I missed all that. I try to compensate for the lack with the few fluttering leaves of my potted greenery and though I appreciated their trying, leaves a pinch of homesickness.
I remembered my grandfather's old house with trees that grew tall and wild that I imagined the possibility of swinging from tree to tree (ala Tarzan and Jane) to get from one end of the property to the other. Or how the sound of the wind through the coconut leaves lulled us to siesta in the summer afternoons. I remembered driving up weekly to UP Diliman to bring my sister Gigi and her suppliesto the dormitories and passing underneath ancient canopies of narra and acacia trees and how that resembled the promenade in Central Park's Mall. I missed the mazañita trees that dotted our neighbor's yard and which I hadclear view from my bedroom window. How it would get heavy with the tiny apples in the summer and how we would shake the branches so the ripe ones would fall to the ground.
I remembered getting lost in Mindoro Island while wandering too far from the farm and finding myself along the shore of the beaches confronted by strange naked trees with exposed roots. They were a frightening sight but I stood there hypnotized, not scared. Amazingly, even in their most unusual shape trees still brought me calm and for me still was beautiful.
I loved how the caballero trees (fire trees) turned bright red orange in June. I once said that if I were to die and live again I'd want to be resurrected as a caballero tree.
When I was 10 I had a crush on a boy named Noel Ramos and we rode the school bus together to go home. I remember flaming fire trees in Sangley Point and the bright yellow school bus and "One Day in Your Life" playing on the radio.
Now I feel nostalgic. And it's raining. I miss trees.
Tonight as I came home and lifted my window to ventilate my room (and skip the air-conditioning) the rain began pouring outside. I looked at my potted plants and decided to give them a feel of the rain for once. I lifted the screen and put them out onto the floor of the fire escape.
Then as I returned to my desk next to he window and worked on my notebook, I glanced outside and watched as my plants were getting their first rain-bath since my ownership. When the raindrops fell on them, the small leaves fluttered and then they had what seemed like this dance of joy.
I was watching this for a while and remembered how the trees outside my window back home in the Philippines did the same whenever it rained after a long and punishing summer. And how like this moment in Manhattan, I had sat on my desk and would get distracted from what I was doing to watch the trees embrace the heavenly outpouring as a reprieve from some punishing ordeal.
One thing about living in Manhattan or in any city for that matter is that you do not have life with trees. The cosmospolitan life is about being surrounded by cement, concrete, glass and steel. Only now and again there would be pockets of green. My apartment faces a small park with trees lining up the avenue that I hardly notice except in the autumn when it turns bright red and fall or in the spring when they start to green again. Also because it is across a wide four lane avenue.
I am used to being enveloped by lots of trees. At home I would be woken from my weekend sleep by the loud singing of the maya (housewren) birds. When I lived in a condo in Makati with Nicole, the old Greenbelt Park was right across from us.
Tonight, I realized I missed all that. I try to compensate for the lack with the few fluttering leaves of my potted greenery and though I appreciated their trying, leaves a pinch of homesickness.
I remembered my grandfather's old house with trees that grew tall and wild that I imagined the possibility of swinging from tree to tree (ala Tarzan and Jane) to get from one end of the property to the other. Or how the sound of the wind through the coconut leaves lulled us to siesta in the summer afternoons. I remembered driving up weekly to UP Diliman to bring my sister Gigi and her suppliesto the dormitories and passing underneath ancient canopies of narra and acacia trees and how that resembled the promenade in Central Park's Mall. I missed the mazañita trees that dotted our neighbor's yard and which I hadclear view from my bedroom window. How it would get heavy with the tiny apples in the summer and how we would shake the branches so the ripe ones would fall to the ground.
I remembered getting lost in Mindoro Island while wandering too far from the farm and finding myself along the shore of the beaches confronted by strange naked trees with exposed roots. They were a frightening sight but I stood there hypnotized, not scared. Amazingly, even in their most unusual shape trees still brought me calm and for me still was beautiful.
I loved how the caballero trees (fire trees) turned bright red orange in June. I once said that if I were to die and live again I'd want to be resurrected as a caballero tree.
When I was 10 I had a crush on a boy named Noel Ramos and we rode the school bus together to go home. I remember flaming fire trees in Sangley Point and the bright yellow school bus and "One Day in Your Life" playing on the radio.
Now I feel nostalgic. And it's raining. I miss trees.