The Trees for Suffield Initiative began in 2022 as a collaborative effort between the Suffield Tree Committee, the Town of Suffield and the Suffield Garden Club. As the group launched, they held several events to garner interest and support. One of those events was a series of writers workshops held at Kent Memorial Library. A different writer came each week, taught a short segment and led a class. At the end of the series, the participants found they wanted to keep going, so they have continued to meet monthly at the marble table in the library’s fiction section. A member provides a writing prompt mostly connected to trees to stay true to the original foundation. They write for a short time, then share with others for feedback. The group is a warm gathering of friends of various writing abilities and is open to anyone who would like to join. We hope to see you on the 2nd Wednesday of each month, 6:30 p.m. If you have a story to tell, send it to treesforsuffield@gmail.com with “A Tree I Love” in the subject line.
Last month’s prompt was to write about the connection between a person and tree: “The Man and His Tree” by Amy Reay Fumbling around the garage in search of the right tools, the man grabbed his worn leather work gloves, the loppers and as an afterthought, the rusted can of Deep Woods Off. He tossed his supplies into a nearby bucket, took the handle, then ducked under the old heavy door that doesn’t quite rise up as easily as it should.
He walked out into the sunshine marveling over the beauty of the day after the long stretch of rain. He walked over to the tree, which had recently dropped all her pink blossoms (quicker than usual, thanks to that rain).
“Well, hello there, beautiful lady,” he said, smiling up at her gnarled branches and rotted limbs. If he was being honest, this girl wasn’t looking so great, but he favored rose-colored glasses and imagined she looked the way she used to in earlier years.
Slipping his hands into the soft leather of his gloves, he began to chat with his tree. As he lopped off the first of the decayed limbs, he smiled and told the story of the day they met. Revisiting that time seemed to make the old tree stand a little taller, as if she wanted to be young and vibrant once again. The man shared his thoughts of those early years. Not so much about the way she looked then, but about the times they shared, the laughter that occurred under her shade, thoughts of kids climbing far up into her arms, building forts. She was making memories for them and with them. He chuckled at the reverie as he continued to clean up the suckers sprouting from her trunk, raking a pile off to one side.
As the day went on, he would pause for a sip of cold water, remembering picnics in the garden alongside his tree, or a cocktail poured over rattling ice cubes as they took in the setting sun out back. Putting his water bottle aside, and reaching for the loppers once more, he told the old tree, “You know, taking care of you is important to me.” The man thought he heard an audible sigh coming from the tree but perhaps he just felt it in his heart.
Throughout the day, he chopped and pinched away all the things dragging down the old tree and carried away the mess out of sight. As the sun began to recede, he turned back and saw his progress. His time and effort made quite a difference. The tree was looking better, brighter, happier…because she knew his care of her meant he loved her.
Not everything could be fixed with those shears but that wasn’t what mattered. For today, the tree thrived from his kindness and felt the best she could because of him. She knows that for all the days she can stand in that yard watching the sun rise, the flowers bloom and the sun set again— she knows she is loved, and she will return that love right back. She will wrap her limbs around that man in the worn leather gloves and sigh into the breeze… “I love you too.”