Tony's Tree

Whenever someone, usually someone who grew up elsewhere, said to me when I was growing up, "Nothing grows in Nevada!" I'd say only three words: "My mother's yard."

"Well, OK, in your mom's yard," they'd say. My mother could grow anything. She and my dad bought a piece of typically empty Nevada land; their friends told them that they'd "never be able to grow anything there." Mom told, with glee, the story of how their most vocal critic pulled into the back driveway in the spring, when the flowers were blooming, the lawn was velvet, and the trees were filled out. "He stared with his mouth open, then got back in his car and drove away. He never came back, but we never heard any grief from him again."

My mom literally brought home cut branches, stuck them in the ground, and they turned into trees. A now towering cedar came home from a picnic in a styrofoam cup. She had fruit trees, vegetables, more flowers than you can count.

Now, it's been more than three years since she passed away, her yard hasn't been watered even once, and it's an absolute jungle. The shrubs and vines and things have taken over. The flowers are reseeding. There are seedling trees that have to go, because they have no room to grow up where they are. They're burying fences and patios.

Since I was a kid, the largest tree in her front yard has belonged to my friend. I mentioned it in my blog post just after Mom passed away ("Mom"): "Can I build a Swiss Family Robinson tree house in your tree and just live in it?" one of my friends asked her once. "Sure. You just let me know when," she said. Every few years, he'd bring it up - "That tree still there?" and she'd say, "Still waiting for you." "Maybe I'll bring my son over, and we'll build that treehouse," he'd say. "I'll be here," she'd tell him. We've called it Tony's Tree for years. It will always be Tony's Tree. 

They talked about his planned treehouse many times. "I want it to have power, plumbing, everything. I want to be able to live in it," Tony would say. "Sure," Mom would answer. After storms, he'd want to know, "How's my tree?"

"You're never going to cut that tree down, are you?" he asked once. "Oh, no," she said, sounding scandalized.

After Mom died, Tony came over to her house for her memorial, and again for Thanksgiving. "Is that tree still mine?" he asked. "Of course! It's always going to be yours!" My whole family knew. It was his; any time he wanted to build a treehouse, he was welcome. His kids were too old to be excited about a treehouse, but he hoped to have grandchildren. Maybe some day, they'd get to use it. "Maybe some day, I'll be homeless, and need to live in it," he joked.

A year and a half after Mom died, Tony died. I was unprepared for it ("Loving Tony"). He was sober, he wasn't sick, he'd recovered from a devastating car accident - everything was supposed to be OK.

Nothing on Earth lasts forever.

The tree comforted me. It stood where it always had. It waited.

I was comforted by the fact that we all knew that it was still Tony's Tree. Some day, when we had the money, I would build the treehouse. Maybe Tony's grandkids would get to use it. When I looked at it, I saw my mother, I saw Tony, I saw possibilities, I saw stability and predictability.

But the tree is old, and the weather is harsh.

"A big branch broke off of Uncle Tony's tree," said my daughter. She lives in her grandmother's house (which is now her Uncle Gary's house).

"Yeah, a lot of branches broke during that storm," I answered. Heavy, wet snow, much needed snow, and high wind had wrought havoc around town. But that tree is older than I am. Its trunk is probably 12 feet or more around. It would be fine, I was sure.

Then I went down and looked at the tree. The broken branch is huge, looking like a decent sized tree by itself. Its base is as big around as a person, and left a deep gash in the trunk as it peeled off. It's the kind of gash that invites insects or disease. Worse, as I looked up into the canopy, I saw what I've been ignoring and denying - dead wood.

Many of Mom's willow trees are showing dead wood in their higher branches. It happens, it's normal. But I have been actively in denial about how much is in Tony's Tree. There's quite a bit.

"That whole tree has to go," said someone behind me. It may have been my husband, or my son; I don't know. I just stared at the tree. "Yeah," I said, but I didn't mean it. That tree will outlive me - won't it? It outlived my mom. It outlived Tony. It'll always be there, won't it?

"It has to go." Someone else said it. It probably does, but I'm not OK with that.

The tree is coming to the end of its life. I have to wrap my head around that.

We puttered around doing yard chores; my daughter isn't a yard person. I kept thinking about the tree. I walked up and put my hand on its trunk. "I know," I said, "I know."

"Who are you talking to?" my son wanted to know.

"The tree." Then the tears came.

As long as the tree was there, I didn't have to let go. There are other trees - willows, apple trees, plum trees, junipers, a cedar, maples, an oak, stumps from long dead poplars. I would be OK losing any of them, even all of them, but not this tree. I was never prepared to lose this tree.

My son hugged me, long and hard.

My daughter came out of the house, saw me, and said, "What's wrong with Mom?"

"Uncle Tony's tree."

I know that I won't love them any less if I don't have their things with me. I know that they love me, with or without their stuff. I know that I haven't failed the tree, or failed my loved ones. I understand all of that. It's simply an intellectual understanding, though, not an emotional response. I will miss this tree more than I can say.

My family has assured me that we will make something with the wood, something great. We will leave the trunk standing. Maybe we'll hire a chainsaw artist. Maybe we'll make it look like the home of fairy tale elves. We will make something, something wonderful, something to honor Tony and my mother. I know that we will.

But change is hard.

Goddess Pele

I wanted to see Kilauea for most of my life. I'm lucky enough to live somewhere with access to volcanoes, so the concept of "volcano" wasn't new to me. Mountains with names like Lassen and Shasta are familiar places for me; plus, I've been to Yellowstone. I've walked through lava tubes, seen a hillside of obsidian, watched boiling mud pots. But the idea of an erupting volcano was so exciting, especially an eruption that you could get close enough to safely watch. When Kilauea started erupting, she became a "must do" sight.

My brother can see volcanoes - Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams - from his front porch. He narrowly missed being in the Mt. St. Helens blast zone in 1980, and he brought me a jar of flour-fine ash the next time he came to visit. As a scenic and wildlife photographer, though, he too wanted to see Kilauea.

We both finally got to see her in our middle age years, on separate trips. I was not really prepared for how Hawaiian volcanoes differed from the ones I knew. I was used cone shaped mountains, steeply rising and covered in snow. Sometimes, age and eruption would round the summit, but they still had a recognizable look. I'd been on Oahu before, and thought that the Big Island's volcanoes might look like Oahu's mountains.

Instead, by my frame of reference, they barely looked like mountains. Even Mauna Loa, the distance from her summit to the ocean floor making her the largest mountain on Earth, just looked like a long, gradual, unspectacular rise, ending in more of a plateau than a peak.

Kilauea doesn't even look like a separate mountain to me. I can't see any definition between her and the surrounding area. Plus, her caldera is lower than the surrounding area, not on a peak, like I'd expected.

"It's a steaming pit," said a man close to us, on his first visit there. Well, OK, technically, if you have no poetry in your soul.

It was fascinating, but not what I'd expected.

On our first visit, we were staying about three and a half hours away, so we only saw Hawaii Volcanoes National Park in the daylight. We saw the caldera, participated in a ranger led program, walked through Thurston Lava Tube, saw steam vents. I was happy to see someplace I'd wanted to go for so long.

My brother enjoyed his first trip to the park, but he was on a guided excursion from Oahu, so he had even less time there than we did.

None of us got to see live lava flows, the volcano at night, or (on our wish list) lava flows hitting the sea.

When we came back years later on a family trip, with my husband, most of my children and my brother together, we had wish lists of experiences that we missed the first time. Topping my brother's list were 1. a helicopter tour, and 2. seeing the caldera at night. Those things were on our list, as well.

There were seven of us, all arriving at different times. The first day we were all there, we planned to spend all day in the park. We did everything we'd done before and more, including a drive down the length of Chain of Craters Road.

Before sunset, we staked out spots near the Jagger Museum and waited for dark. For the seven of us, we had 5 regular cameras and 6 cell phone cameras. This spot is the closest observation area to the caldera, and the cameras clicked with regularity.

Then it happened - the first glow of orange in the steam.

Can't see it? Don't worry; it got more and more pronounced as darkness fell.

 

It was just gorgeous. Click, click, click!

Then it was dark, and the view went from stunning to magical.

I thought that it couldn't get much better than that.

But we still had our helicopter ride!

Do you see what we're all packing? Of course - cameras. We had wide lenses, telephoto lenses, a GoPro; this would be one well recorded flight.

(That fanny pack kind of thing we're all wearing? That's a parachute. Or, maybe a flotation device. I'm not kidding. They're mandatory.)

We took off from the far side of the island and headed inland, over the "shoulder road" between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, headed for Kilauea. "Are there any active lava flows right now?" my son asked. We're aware that nature doesn't take orders or requests, but we were hoping.

"I'm sure we'll see something exciting. For one thing, the floor of the caldera fell last night," the pilot said. That means that the hard crust on an area had crumbled, and left the flowing lava underneath visible. For the pilot, this was an everyday occurrence, but for mainlanders, it was very exciting.

As we approached the caldera, my husband, shooting with the wide angle lens, was shooting images like this:

When we got closer, my zoom lens allowed me allowed me to shoot straight down into the caldera. The pilot circled over the volcano, one direction and then another.

OH MY GOODNESS! It was amazing.

As we flew on, the pilot said, "I'll just watch for smoke." That was likely, he said, to indicate something that we'd want to see.

A rising wisp of smoke led to this:

The next led to this:

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh! It looked just like something on the National Geographic Channel. "That's new," the pilot said. "It'll be gone in about 15 minutes."

It's hard to estimate from the air, but I think the drip was about ten feet long. I zoomed out to get a bit of perspective, and in again to watch it ooze.

The next sight of rising smoke was larger. An isolated stand of trees was smoking, then catching fire, from the lava at their feet.

"They avoided the last few flows. Poor things, they're goners now," the pilot said.

I felt for the trees, but it was fascinating. Shooting through the moving, curved helicopter windows was difficult, but all of us managed to get numerous shots of this truly once in a lifetime experience.

Mahalo, Goddess Pele, for a look into your home.

All photos, copyright 2015, The Reflection Works Photography