The Intrepid Tree of Life

I have discovered something precious about my creative process and mostly I want to be alone with it, isolated in my own private bubble. But there is always this thing called balance that gets in the way. I struggle with grounding. My head up in the sky sometimes wants to fly straight off my shoulders. But then it inevitably plummets to the ground with a painful crash to “reality’, and I find myself grumpy and disoriented. This does not make me very pleasant company either.

The way I have usually grounded is by playing in the dirt. I go to my garden. But here, in the Keys, I have become indifferent to my rented plot. It has never felt like mine. I have lost motivation because if I don’t tend to the plants constantly, most of them desiccate from neglect within a day. Without an adequate canopy overhead, my yard is fiercely baked by the sun. The ground has little to offer other than limestone from an ancient coral reef. The rain is unpredictable, illusory for weeks, maybe months. But, when it does show, we see a year’s worth in one night. And when the welcomed sea breeze relieves the landscape from the heat, it brings corrosive sea salt. This place is harsh for any seed to relinquish and unfurl its tender growth.

And while my garden has brought frustration rather than the usual joy, I am craving connection with nature. Or maybe it is something deeper. Perhaps, I am longing for personal connection too. When I arrived in the Keys over a year ago, I was eager to take hold of my new home, and the people with it. And of course, I too was burned by the sun, swept up in salty winds and taken away by storm floods. Washed up here on this strange substrate, I am unsure about anchoring myself again.

Yesterday, my lovely friend, Alina, invited me to her home. In the early morning, we slipped into kayaks and glided into the mangroves mere yards from her back porch. And, for the first time in months, I did indeed feel grounded. The lush green forest growing from the sea, buzzed with insects and birdsong. All kinds of life darted in and out of the arching skein of roots. The twisted limbs intertwined overhead created an indistinguishable maze.

We drifted into an inlet, chatting effortlessly. I have been noticing lately that my mouth seems to run separately from my mind anymore, or the filter between the two has been damaged at some point. Sometimes I feel this is liberating, but mostly embarrassing. In the middle of our conversation, she asked, “Do you see yourself putting down roots here?”

What a perfectly wonderful and innocuous question. It is a rather good one as we nurture our budding friendship. But my initial reflex is protective and harsh, even to my own ears, “How can I put down roots in a place that will be underwater in 50 years?” I quickly realized what these words meant, but they were already hanging with the humidity in the air. They fully demonstrated myself as a flighty prospect for friendship, as well as insulting my new friend’s wonderful home she has invested everything into. Perhaps what I have said is true which makes it all the more potent. Maybe the sea will swallow this place in my lifetime. But isn’t that what I love about it? It is dynamic and temporary. This chain of islands is always evolving and incredibly rich with transient diversity.

At that moment, I let my surroundings wash over me fully. The sea was still, almost a perfect mirror. The sky was a translucent blue with clouds that seemed to playfully stretch into its expansiveness rather than their usual tendency to suffocate it with their imaginary comfort. I spotted six ospreys overhead. The parents appeared to be taking their offspring for their introductory flights, piercing the air with navigational instructions. A magnificent frigate bird dropped down ahead of our kayaks to snatch a ballyhoo from the water mid flight without a single drop of water tarnishing its sleek body. I studied the mangroves and my ears rang like they tend to do recently. I intuitively turned to my right in time to see a small manatee effortlessly gliding below my kayak and surfacing before me. Its gentle presence awed me to stillness. This is my life now.

We spent the rest of the morning swimming on a small beach watching nurse sharks and manatees pass by us in the shallows. When we returned to Alina’s dock, we discussed the plants that did not survive the last storm. I feared my careless statement poked a soft spot. The fickle sea has already inundated her backyard before. But I couldn’t help but notice throughout our morning how alive and joyful she is here. I could tell she is in tune with her home. She is indeed rooted here. And I realize I want to be too.

This brings to my mind a painting. A few months ago I had attempted to paint over the largest canvas I have tried thus far. I had no forethought as to what would come out of me. I just slapped color absentmindedly while I laughed. I felt like a toddler finger painting just for the pure fun of paint smooshing between hands and construction paper. The image that came out in a joyful flow was a mangrove tree rooted in the ocean and reaching toward a turbulent swirling sky. When I showed it to my friend, Nell, she had said it reminded her of the Tree of Life. I have always cherished that symbol, but that was not my intention for painting it. However, maybe my subconscious alluded to my own private metaphor for life which was not an ancient oak or towering redwood, nestled deep in the rich loam of Earth, but in fact, a mangrove tree.

The wonder of mangrove propagules is that they can travel in the sea great distances, blown off course by storms, carried by currents, and transported to shore by the tide. Only until they find themselves hovering over a place that is silty, secluded and unfounded will they consider dropping down to the ground. While mangroves do prefer fresh water and nutritious earth, they tend to take root in the most inhospitable places that no other tree can grow. Nothing else can outcompete them at the barrier of earth and sea, bridging the terrestrial and the intertidal. Aside from their superpower for surviving the salty, sulfuric conditions, their roots create vast networks with other mangrove trees. These mangal tangles provide sanctuaries, nurseries and habitats for every species that resides in this highly diverse estuary as well as protecting the land around it from the sheer force of the atmosphere or ocean. What’s more, that interconnected community of mangroves trap and stabilize silt, debris and organic matter. They collect all the nutrients created by the immense number of life cycles that persist within their embrace and over time stretching through grand historical scales, they engineer the terrain, creating land for generations to come. They master the earth, air and water with nothing but integrity and resilience, just like the heart of my new friend Alina. And, perhaps mine too.