To Be an Oak

Coastal Live Oak, Lucas Valley, CA

In the days of  wooden sailing vessels a tree such as this might serve as a single bracing knee for a ship of the line. English Oaks were decimated for this purpose. The British Empire owed its success to its navies and its navies owed theirs to its ships, and the men who sailed them. The natural strength of the oak was part of the secret behind the might of the English ships and thus not an insignificant component of the might of history's greatest naval power. Thousands of oak trees died for the sins of colonialism.

But this is not an English Oak, it's a Coastal Live Oak living on a hillside in what was once a cow pasture in Northern California. It's primary use these days is to provide romantic atmosphere in the living rooms of Marin County in the form of firewood. There is nothing quite like an oak fire. The wood burns well and fills a home with a pleasant woodsy smell. Oak is also the preferred fuel of the pizza oven. How lovely for such a noble life form as this, to die for our humble palates and palaces.

To me, there is no living thing as stunning or as wonderful as a great oak. I am ever fascinated by their shapes. I've written about them before. In my novel Serpent Box an ancient oak tree plays a prominent role. When I look at an oak tree such as this, I do not see them as static objects. I see them in motion. I see them as vital, living things reaching for the sky. I see them in the midst of a dance. Swaying, turning, undulating. Oak trees are erratic, electric, fractal, chaotic, frozen. Or are they?

I remember seeing once a series of time-lapse photographs taken of a sea bed covered in starfish. Seen in real time, the scene was tranquil and static. Starfish move at a rate of speed roughly equivalent to that of a snail. But sped up, the scene was quite different. When several hours were compressed into a minute or two, the ocean floor looked like a freeway interchange. Starfish, zipping by in all directions, appeared as fast as automobiles, complete with traffic jams and pile-ups. Time *is* another dimension, and I imagine oak trees as simply stuck in ours. But if we could watch them over the span of a hundred years what we saw might resemble an upside-down lightning strike.

Same tree, different angle. The setting sun is obscured by one of the upper branches and the tree is in silhouette. Look closely, but relax your gaze so that it becomes slightly blurred. It might be some neural ganglia, or a piece of coral, or the spidery webs of frost on the window glass. The patterns of nature repeat at various scales and in a wide variety of locations. What an amazing thing it is - to be alive.

If you stand under an oak tree and shut your eyes you can hear it growing. If you hold your hand to its trunk you can feel it breathing, like the hide of some great, prehistoric beast. Trees are my favorite life forms, and oaks my favorite among trees. How beautiful it would be, to be an oak tree that is allowed to live out its natural life on a hill such as this. How many thousands of gallons of rain will it drink? How many sails full of wind will it catch? How many birds will perch in its branches in a hundred years? How many leaves will it grow and shed? And how many human beings will stand beneath it, hold their palms against its trunk and give it credence? Not many of those.

I would rather be an oak tree than a man. It is a worthier existence. And though it does not give very much back to the earth, it springs from the earth and is thus more a part of this world than I.