Land. Essex: 3
The Plane Tree
4th October
Today I am not going to the Forest. Today it is raining. Yesterday it was raining. The day before that it rained too. Every single night I have lain in bed listening to the rain falling outside. Every morning I have woken up to the sound of rain. It is seemingly never ending. Like my grief. I had hoped that I would be lighter after visiting the Forest, bathing in its beauty and then writing about the way it felt. But the opposite seems to have happened. Writing about how I felt reinforced just how deeply felt my sense of loss is. And this time of year marks other anniversaries. Other deeply felt losses. Other memories invade and confuse me — yesterday was the anniversary of a funeral, tomorrow of a tragic loss, next week of another and at the end of the month yet another. And this time last year it was me who went repeatedly to my brothers damp flat to sort and clear his belongings, his mosaic artworks, his cupboards and shelves. It rained then too. Often. I would sit on the step and watch as rain fell onto the grass of his little garden. Bob Marley singing in the background as I tried not to feel. For it was tragic. Putting a persons life into black bin bags and boxes and sorting through things that nobody wanted. That I didn’t want. I did bring home a few things: a beautiful blue geode, a stainless steel skull weed grinder, an old harmonica and a scarf made with the family tartan. But I put these away — I did not want to see them, to remember. To consider his absence. His lack. I brought home an unopened jar of Marmite from his cupboard. It sits in my small spice cupboard precariously balanced on the jar of coconut oil. Last week, I remembered how much my family failed to be nurturing — my lack — my brothers lack also. I remembered how lucky I was to have common law in-laws who filled in the gaps and made me feel part of something wonderful, teaching me so much that I did not know about family and its value. After our beloved Grandma Em was killed in a road accident, and we were clearing out her house, I brought home a brown 70’s ceramic chicken egg container. I remember wanting one when I first had a home of my own but I didn’t have the money to buy one. Now, Grandma Em’s sits pride of place beneath the spice cupboard, housing eggs. As I was thinking about family and the luck of the draw, I opened the cupboard to get some peppercorns. The jar of Marmite jumped out and landed on the chicken, breaking its tail clean off and into two pieces. I was devastated but the break was clean — I can repair it. I can fix that thing. But I could never fix my little brother. His broken life ended sadly, tragically. It’s too much to bear. Yet I found a way to manage and deal with his death. I organised the funeral, the wake, the burying of the ashes. I sorted his flat, his bills, his belongings but I could not sort him. I am angry that that was his life, that he had no choice it seems but to suffer. Anger sits inside my belly. Deep and disturbing. It affects my digestion, my breathing, my voice, my body. I carry the loss and the sadness in my body I realise. I have no room it seems with which to embody the Forest. I am too full already.
Since writing about the Forest last week, my diaphragm has been hurting. It spasms and twists. When I move suddenly, or sit to write, I find that I am tense. My shoulders, spine, all of me seems to be twisted in a kind of tort, and I imagine my muscles rigid and my intestines writhing, despite my attempts to relax and let the tension go. This morning I woke feeling awful. My head hurt — it was as if there was a hot poker poking into my frontal lobe and I felt sick. I tried some yoga, but that just seemed to twist me even more. I tried to lie down and relax but that made my eyes sting. Eventually, I lay on my stomach and closed my eyes for what seemed like a really long time. I listened to music, I tried to engage in what I was feeling. I wept a little and then lay in a hot deep bath, letting the heat unravel the tension. I floated. Suspended. Weightless.
Sitting now, feeling much calmer, the plane tree outside my window fills my field of vision. Beyond, the sky is misty, obscuring the blocks of flats on the horizon. Pigeons sit on the low roof of the supermarket opposite and I watch as the branches gently sway. This tree has saved my life. Last year when I was grieving, I watched as it leaves fell. Its bare branches cut shapes across the winter skyline and seed pods hung precariously, falling when the winds were high. I watched the world below as buds emerged and leaves grew again and now the leaves are starting to lose their colour and the green is speckled with orange and yellow hues. A whole year has passed. Its trunk is surrounded by concrete and paving stones and I often worry that it is unable to get the water it needs but there are a row of trees out there and I imagine they support each other, connected as they are through the understory. Roots. Family — we share parts of our DNA with trees. We are bound that tree and I. Reassuringly.
The sentinel like London Plane is a cross between the Oriental Plane and the American Sycamore, that naturally hybridised in Spain making its way to Britain in the 17th century. Exactly how it made its way is a mystery but it was first planted along London’s Victoria Embankment in mid 1900’s before being widely planted on the capitals streets, and in parks and squares. Locally, there is Plane tree thought to be over 200 years old, known as the Happy Man tree, named after the pub it overshadowed. Said pub was demolished, along with many other local buildings and dwellings, to make way for posh new flats springing up near the West Hackney reservoirs. Several of these already tower high above the low rise council blocks that remain, slowly being boarded up in preparation for demolition, to make way for yet more posh flats. The Happy Man tree was shortlisted for the Woodland Trusts’ Tree of the Year award this year, but Hackney Council have, despite many protests and complaints, sold the patch of land where it sits to Berkley, so that they can build even more posh flats that none of the local people can afford. They will chop the tree down. Gentrification is too nice a word for this. Expulsion works better. Eradicate the local population and demolish all the flats. That should be Hackney councils slogan: expulsion and eradication. But the tree outside my window remains. For now. As do I. But for how long can I live up here I wonder, in this brick and mortar dwelling. For how long can I ignore the pull as my soul screams out to be in nature, to feel the Land under my feet and in my heart. Where it should be. I do not want to be an observer, a categoriser; removed from the sensual lived experience of being in nature. I want to feel, to embody the Land somehow. But today, this is all I can do. Sit and observe the tree outside my window as it bends and sways.
This week I will return to the Forest to walk and bathe in its beauty. Regardless of the weather. I will take time to listen to my feelings, to acknowledge them instead of suppressing them and holding them inside. I will breathe in the oxygenated air and breathe out my sadness. I will wait. I know the grief will pass. I have been in this place before. All things are perpetually changing — the universe is in constant flux — and I am changing too as the tension within unravels and liberates me from this place of pain. It is deep and the unravelling long but there is nothing else to do apart from this now. No need to think. No need to recall, remember, reminisce. I only need to be. Like the tree. The tree that dances in the wind outside my window, drinking the rain, soaking up my pain.
