January Journal: Trees

[liv]

forestofglory pointed out that 16^th January corresponds to the 15^th Shevat in the Jewish calendar. This date is mentioned in the Talmud as being the new year for trees, and in modern times it's become the festival of Tu biShevat in which we celebrate all things tree and nature. The middle of January is kind of a ridiculous time to be celebrating the first signs of spring growth in England, though we're told that almond trees come into blossom at this time of year in Israel.

velveteenrabbi explains the spiritual significance of the festival, even when it doesn't quite match our experience of the climate. kerrypolka celebrated with fruit cocktails, and forestofglory herself had a fruit party. Anyway, my last minute attempt to mark the festival is by filling forestofglory's prompt to talk about trees that matter to me.

The house where I spent much of my childhood was called Fruit Trees. It was a newly built house and one of the first things my parents did when we moved in was to plant some young fruit tree saplings. There was also a miniature fir that someone gave me for a birthday present when I was quite little, and we planted it out and it grew tall faster than me, so that by the time we left that house it was very far from miniature.

My school insisted on remaining on a tiny site in the centre of town, which meant that during my time there there was less and less open or even not built on space within the school grounds. Right in the middle of the shrinking courtyard there was a huge great copper beech tree. blue_mai and I used to sit under it and eat the beech mast and talk and talk and try to work out how the world works and how we fit into it.

There's an amazingly productive lemon tree in the garden of my uncle's summer house in Queenscliff, Australia. We've visited a few times, and it's always fascinating to be in a climate where there's more big scented juicy lemons than you could ever eat right there in your back garden.

When I was 15 we moved to the house where my parents now live. It's kind of an amazing house, but it's surrounded by a really really amazing garden; the trees there are listed and the house is just a fairly typical big old house. (The garden is where I held my wedding reception, for those of you who were there). So from mid-teens I used to look out of the window and see these beautiful trees, some of them quite a bit taller than the house. And I would go to sleep to the sea-sounds of the wind in the trees. Mum used to claim that there was a tree in the garden beginning with every single letter of the alphabet, though that did involve some slight fudges like counting the oak tree under Q for Quercus. There are little unassuming trees I love, as well as great magnificent ones. A Judas tree which grows flowers directly from the branches rather than on twigs, and some elderly but still fruiting apple trees, and all kinds of things.

Currently the tree I'm most attached to is a holly tree I can see from my kitchen window, though it actually grows in my neighbours' garden. Whenever I'm doing the washing up I look out and see it full of finches and tits and it never fails to cheer me up.

[January Journal masterlist. Anyone want the last empty slot?]

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[kass]

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