My friend Arthur has many special talents. He likes to know your birthday, and if you ask him, he’ll tell you what day of the week you were born. When I came across this relatively recent windfall, I imagined it might have germinated 500 years ago. According to Arthur, February 12, 1522 was a Sunday. I haven’t asked him if used the Gregorian or Julian calendar, and the whole plot thickens when we venture into how the Tlingit folk who were the only ones that might have watched it grow as a sapling marked the years. I doubt they would have tagged her with a Western day of the week, but I’ll name her Sunday Hemlock, Síndi Yán, because Arthur also likes to commemorate those who have passed on by saying “In loving memory of____ (the person’s name)___” to the universe. I appreciate that.

Arthur

Those early passerbys might have let her grow knowing some day she would be valuable for tanning hides, dying fabric for robes, making spoons, halibut hooks, dipnets, spear shafts, and combs. They might have selected some of her branches for collecting herring roe, or used her needles in salve for burns. Or they might have had other ways of valuing her.

Síndi Yán lived two-thirds of her life before the A’akw Kwáan folks living under her had any contact with Europeans. 

Cedar and I climbed up on her stump, still redolent from the fall, on Saturday. Cedar was delighted to go off trail and explore the crown with me, where we discovered that Síndi broke into two when she hit another downed tree, after scarring some nearby younger ones. 

I’d love to know more about what Ms. Yán experienced in her lifetime. 

I’ve just started Richard Powers’ novel The Overstory, and am thinking today of these opening lines. 

The tree is saying things, in words before words.

It says: Sun and water are questions endlessly worth answering.

It says: A good answer must be created, many times, from scratch.

It says: Every piece of earth needs a new way to grip it. There are more ways to branch than any cedar pencil will ever find. A thing can travel everywhere, just by moving still. 

Richard Powers, _The Overstory_

I know Arthur, who specializes in questions, would agree about the value of a fresh answer, from scratch. I, on the other hand, am just beginning to form my questions about the natural and human history of our back yard.

I’m glad Cedar is along to nudge me off my mind’s beaten paths. 

  • Centuries of biodiversity
  • Scars on the next generation from the fall
  • Cedar specializes in multi-sensory sampling.