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The Giving Tree
4 April 2019
It's hard to walk by this stump of a tree down the hill from us without thinking of The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. There isn't much left of it, suffice to say, yet it would be missed if ever uprooted.
That's partly because Chou Chou, the French bistro behind it that takes its name from the sound a train makes (without a French accent), painted its exterior in a brilliant orange.
And there's no little irony involved in arguing it would look better without the suckers sprouting from its trunk. And to prove it, just use the rollover buttons to see for yourself.
If only gardening were as easy as image editing.
It strikes us, in fact, as more a work of modern art than a plant. It's arms seem to be whirling in dance as the trunk spins around. And yet it's firmly rooted to the ground. Ground, we note, which is green with grass from the recent rains.
You don't always get a very clear view of it, though.
That's because it's in the restaurant's parking lot, which is also used by Muni drivers. And since there's no alley in the small block of businesses along Dewey, it's also where you'll find all the garbage bins. It's not, in short, keeping very good company.
But we happened to walk by on our ill-fated shoot of cherry blossoms in the rain. We did get wet, but what blossoms we found were all facing down from the rain, despondent over the weather.
A Sympathy Card. For Cousin Marie who passed away at the age of 92.
It wasn't a complete loss, thanks in part to the tree and to one shot that profited from a very dark background. We used it as a sympathy card when we learned of the death of a cousin we will very much miss.
Cousin Marie was something of giving tree herself, running a pre-school for 30 years after raising two daughters.
Loss turned on its head seems to be a theme this week. But it's art that does the spinning, giving back when there's nothing left.
