The Big Big Tree

There used to be this tree at the corner of Beverley and Dundas. It grew out of the corner of the big green field attached to the Italian Consulate, branches spread over the northwest corner of the sidewalk. Those brick walls holding the field up and out of the concrete were already crumbling from my very first memory, worn down and faded, reinforced in places with wood beams and boards, then concrete.

I have walked through this intersection for over 16 years. I used to live on Beverley. Close by is the church I used to attend, the everlasting Lucky Moose (I think there used to be one of the big Moose statues under this tree too, a pair with the one on the roof of Lucky), Hong Kong Bistro, the CSA van and watering hole. I have gone that way coming from school, going to work, off to play, out to eat, going to yap and chill. Now I walk through that intersection weekly toward the studio.

Last year I was standing at the sidewalk and trying to figure out why it looked so strange. Then it dawned on me that the big tree was gone. The midday sunlight beat down onto that northwest corner in a way that the pavement could not have anticipated. The street seemed distressed. Or it might have just been me.

Over the next few months, they took down the entire perimeter of brick wall and rebuilt it with new brick, reinforced with concrete. The field was resodded with fresh grass and a row of short evergreen bushes were planted evenly spaced along the perimeter.

There is no reason for writing all of this except that I recalled the memory of realizing the tree was gone just yesterday, standing in the same spot at the crosswalk (southwest corner looking north) as that other first time. I then recalled that all of last summer I had grieved the absence of the tree in a small way whenever I waited for the light.

I considered the intersection’s personality compromised in its absence. The place now felt bare in a jarring sense. Typical of them (who?? I don’t even know who), I thought, to strip the quieter beauties first.

It was a big big tree and I wondered—belatedly in the present of the tree being gone—how much work it’d taken to grow to the size it did and all the adventures it’d had in the borderlands of the quiet field and busy corner. What kinds of birds had sat there (like that falcon we saw two summers ago tearing into a pigeon wing just one street up, or the winter-fat sparrows that like to nest in the bushes across the crosswalk)? What conversations has it heard? Who might it have witnessed coming in and out of the consulate? Who might it have spied in and out of the art gallery? How many people have slept in the bus stop across from it? Big life. Small life. Boring life. Exciting life. Big big tree.

In all the years I’d walked by and under this tree, I did not stop to talk to it. I did not stop to look up. I have only stepped under its shade hundreds and hundreds of times. I have ducked my head down and around its sprays of leaves. I have reached out to touch and brush aside. I have stood in the shadow of its big shady boughs and enjoyed the sound of the its leaves shaking in the crisp late fall. I have picked my way around the fallen blossom and bud, mess of small berries crushed underfoot in the early summer (was this even this tree or a different tree up the street?). I have curved my steps around the wall reinforcements that were ever tilting and slipping, knowing it was big tree roots pushing up against them and winning over time.

In short, I loved this tree but hadn’t known I loved it until it was gone: the oldest story in the world.

Writing all of this out is short of an homage, and about a feeling just unstructured enough to not need a name. Something like, once upon a time, she crossed the street and missed the tree. repeat. repeat. repeat. end of story.

Yet, somehow, typing this out now makes me sad, the amorphous feeling lifting into narrative like the sound of a clear bell. A life and a loss. I want to say it is a small loss but it was so very very big this tree. I want to say it is a big loss but I was so very very unintentional toward it.

I will walk through the intersection again tomorrow and look at the specific section of sky the big big tree used to obscure. It feels good to do so, insufficient in retrospect but also it will be okay.

Once upon a time she crossed the street and missed the tree.