In a Beech on a Monday

Across the street from the Atlanta Rowing Club Boathouse on Azalea, there’s a little park next to the Chattahoochee – it’s little more than a parking lot and a few picnic tables but it will do in a pinch.  Today, as I often do I went there to eat lunch, shake off Monday morning and watch the geese goose about or whatever it is that geese do.  There are several perplexing oddities about what I observe while working in the suburbs. Not the least of which is the inordinate amount of people who seem to have little else to do than to stroll along the banks of a muddy river in wind suits on a cloudy Monday.  If the setting were changed (say to my neighborhood) such a set of humans would be deemed shiftless and ne'er-do-well no doubt.  Perception is all a matter of perspective I suppose.

Speaking of perspective, I’m sure you’ve noticed the magnificent contrast of beige-white Beech fringe against the harsh edge of this winter’s grey coat.  If you haven’t, you should.  You’ll spot them usually along a river, nestled in the low damp earth or clustered against the northern slope of a tall hill and always in the protective shade of a mature tree canopy.  Their apparitional leaves dance decisively among the stark, bitter branches of their less organized neighbors, laughing at the frozen season.  Not all Beech keep their leaves through the winter – only the young and kind of pissed off ones, I think.  I dig that.  Even in nature, attitude can win the day, right?  If you’ve seen them, you know what I mean.  They are the last ones standing so to speak, at least as it pertains to leaf retention.  It’s a big defiant ‘f@&% you’ to winter.  If you listen closely, you can hear them silently scream, “really?”  “they’re mine, I’m keepin’ ‘em…”, with a tilted brim and a nervous branch on the 9 mm (at least in my imagination).  Not sure why I felt the need to force the natural world through a Boyz n the Hood filter, but if you can see past that you can see the deeper metaphor I hope. 

It’s only this time of year that I notice them at all actually.  It’s only when the blistered sky falls such as it has today that I am conscious of their screaming, “look at me!” I don’t recognize how beautiful they are in the early fall when their deep easy dies down to gold and then fades to a soft leathered brass.  That’s really when they are their most stunning; but it’s still too hot to hike comfortably in late October.  There’s still too much green around to appreciate the difference – the distinction between their leafy darkness and the lightness of their silvery smooth barked hosts.

A day like today’s overcast nonsense certainly isn’t the finest venue to understand what I’m trying to say.  But on a day like today if you sit still long enough and put your mind in the right place, you can honestly almost hear Thelonius Monk whisper to John Coltrane…”something really cool…”  as the breeze bangs into and among them.  And still, the best of ever is witnessing these all but dead beauties bathing in the crispness of a cloudless winter sun.  That aforementioned white-beige on a cloudy day becomes a glowing cathedral of torch-lit brilliance in low February sunshine.  Without their willful insolence to hold on to whatever they can until springtime reinforcements return to push their dead away, winter would suck more than it already does.

That “deeper metaphor” that I mentioned earlier?  Every night will pass.  As cold and hoary as winter can be, if your eyes are open you can always perceive the promise of an original spring somewhere around the corner.  You just have to know where to look.  Today I saw it in a Beech on a Monday next to the soft muddy banks of a simple river meandering through a sleepy suburb.