Mother Trees and Hard Hope
A Buttons and Bows Tale
“What we decide to focus on not only informs our view of the world, but will also guide our path through it.” - Kristin Ohlson
The Proprietress arrived at Buttons and Bows before daybreak and let herself into the shop as quietly as possible. There was no one but her two cats, Eudora and Madge, to hear her of course, but she didn’t want to break the predawn stillness. This was her favorite time of the day, when even the raucous murder of crows that liked to hang out in the trees in front of the shop were quiet, and the air felt charged with possibility. She always stopped to take a few deep breaths before going inside, holding her final breath so she could listen and feel without distraction. It was in this pause that she checked in with her center to see what was percolating.
Today’s final breath yielded nothing but a weary sigh of frustration and doubt. “This will never do,” the Proprietress whispered as she closed the door behind herself and bent to stroke the cats. Her first stop was the broom closet. There she retrieved her dust mop and began pushing the rainbow confetti covering most of the floor into the center of the room.
The brightly colored pieces of paper were all that was left of the pre-election party she’d hosted five days ago. She and her closest friends had gathered to watch and celebrate the results. They werte so certain that a woman would finally be elected President of the United States. There’d been all kinds of snacks, champagne, and alcohol free cider in the fridge, and of course the confetti tossed playfully into the air even before they turned on the TV.
Once the confetti was swept into a small hill in the center of the room, the Proprietress placed the round wooden table she used to display sale items in the middle of the pile. Next, she arranged all the chairs in the store in a half-circle around the table facing the checkout counter. Finally, she set up her laptop and display screen, positioning the screen so it could be easily seen by people sitting in the chairs. “That should do it,” she said to the cats who’d been following her around the shop, pouncing on the mop and batting at stray pieces of confetti. “Let’s get you guys some breakfast and finish getting ready.”
Ninety minutes later women began to arrive. The first was her techy friend, Katie, who immediately went to the computer to set up the ZOOM call. She was followed by six members of the Cadre, Sally (the owner of Crumpets and Coffee down the street) and her seven-year-old daughter, Chantal. Sally took one look at the number of chairs around the table and said, “That’s not enough chairs. Watch Chantal for me while I get some more from my place.”
“Okay, thank you,” the Proprietress said, taking Chantal’s hand from Sally’s. “How you been, Chantal?” she asked.
“Good,” Chantal replied. “I drew this for you.” She pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to the Proprietress.
“What do we have here?” the Proprietress asked as she unfolded the paper. On it Chantal had drawn a little girl wearing a superhero outfit and shouting, “Girl Power!”
“Maybe you can make a tee shirt like this,” Chantal said. “Girl Power is important.”
“Yes it is!” the Proprietress agreed, giving her a hug. “This is a great drawing, thank you. I’ll see what I can do.”
By 8:30 AM (30 minutes before the gathering was scheduled to start) all the chairs in the room were full and there were many people waiting to be admitted to the ZOOM call. “Want me to contact ZOOM about getting more space?” Katie asked.
“I guess you’d better,” the Proprietress said. “Where are all these people coming from?”
“Well, your email said people could bring a friend,” Katie pointed out.
“True,” the Proprietress conceded. “Look, can you hold down the fort out here? I have a few more things to get ready.”
“No problem,” Katie said.
The Proprietress scooped up Eudora and Madge - carrying one under each arm like furry sacks of potatoes into the back room so they wouldn’t be underfoot. There she exchanged her white Buttons and Bows t-shirt for one the color of sage with an image of a woman emerging from a large oak printed on the front. Beneath the tree’s roots were the words, “Mother Tree.”
At 9:00 AM she gathered the items she’d prepared - a glass candle, a single sheet of paper, and a box of matches - took a few deep breaths, and opened the door. Several dozen sets of eyes followed her progress to the front of the shop where she flipped the closed sign to open. “I guess that’s kind of a moot point,” she said with a grin. “But what the heck. Might as well make it official, right?” Ripples of laughter followed her as she walked to the center of the room - waving to the people on the ZOOM call as she passed - and placed the glass candle, matches, and sheet of paper on the table.
“Thank you all for coming,” she said as she turned to face her guests. “Like many, if not most of you, I’ve spent the past five days since the election in shock - riding a roller coaster of emotions and a sinking sense of deja vu. I closed the shop, crawled into bed with my favorite junk food, and pulled the covers over my head. When I emerged there were crumbs between the sheets and “bedhead” doesn’t begin to describe my hair. But I’d made a decision. I wasn’t giving up.
“I got up, showered, changed the sheets, and took myself for a long walk in the woods near my home. Along the way I remembered the book I’d just finished reading before the Kamala announced she was running for President. It’s called Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard.
“For those who’ve never heard of Simard, she’s a Forest Ecologist who teaches at the University of British Columbia. She’s best known for discovering that trees are social creatures. They’re linked to neighboring trees by underground networks of fungi (mycorrhizal networks) that resemble the neural networks in our brains. It’s through these networks that trees exchange information, warn each other of danger, and share nutrients. But what really knocked my socks off was her discovery that the oldest and largest trees in forests act as central communication hubs. Simard calls them the Mother Trees because they nurture the younger trees - providing food and water just as human parents provide food and water for their children. In other words, the old trees mother their children.” Here the Proprietress paused to let what she’d just said sink in.
“There’s a lot more to Simard’s ongoing and evolving story,” the Proprietress continued, “but it triggered a memory from my childhood. As a kid I was what can only be described as feral. I lived to be outside. I was up and out the door at the crack of dawn, and could be found sitting in trees, galloping around the backyard pretending to be a horse, and drawing pictures of the black widows who lived in the woodpile behind the garage. ‘Your father and I used to worry that we’d never be able to tame you,’ my mother once told me near the end of her life. ‘You refused to wear shoes, hated taking baths, and would sleep with the dog in her dog bed in the laundry room. The day we had to get you dressed for your first day of school was the worst I ever had as your mother. The look on your face when we put those shoes on your feet nearly broke my heart. At first you couldn’t believe it. Then you kicked and screamed and tried to take them off. When we wouldn’t let you, you threw yourself on the floor and refused to get up. We actually had to pick you up and carry you to school.’
“I remember those shoes. They were black and white saddle shoes made of stiff leather that rubbed my heels raw and separated me from the thick dark mud in our backyard where I liked to bury my toes and pretend to be growing tree roots. I was just five, too young to explain what I was experiencing. But looking back I think those shoes were the first step in a systematic 15-year process designed to disconnect me from the natural world and turn me into a productive, well-behaved member of Western society.
“I eventually found my way back to myself, of course,” the Proprietress continued. “Buttons and Bows and the art I create and sell here are proof of that. But I couldn’t help but wonder how many others - how many of you - experienced something similar.” Here she paused and looked around the room, meeting each person’s eyes. “And then I wondered if some of the rancor, cruelty, and need to judge and blame others is a byproduct of how we were educated. Because if this election has taught me anything it’s how addictive, destructive, and unbalanced our system of government becomes when we fall into black and white, good guys versus bad guys thinking. As Kamala said many times during her campaign - the things we have in common far outweigh our differences.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting that we allow those who are caught up in power struggles and the abuse of others for personal gain to run roughshod over us or dismantle our democracy. But there is a difference in my mind between going to war with a goal of conquering, injuring, and controlling others for personal gain and mindful, proactive resistance. We can disagree, argue, even fight and still behave like decent human beings - as members of the larger web of life that sustains us. So I’ve decided to start thinking and behaving like a Mother Tree - as someone who can support, nurture, protect, and guide the people around me. I hope you will do the same for me.”
“I’d like to finish my part of this gathering by reading a poem and lighting the candle you see on the table next to me here. Then y’all can weigh in with your thoughts, suggestions, and stories. The design you see on my shirt and on the candle is my first attempt to paint the portrait of a Mother Tree. I’m sure there are more to come, so stay tuned.
“The poem is one that captures what I meant when I talked about mindful, proactive resistance. It’s called The Hard Hope and was written by the gifted poet, Gloria Horton-Young. Gloria has rendered the tasks we face following the election into stark, hard-hitting, and beautifully painful words. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
THE HARD HOPE by Gloria Horton-Young
P.S. Please let me know if you have a story to share with the Proprietress.
Resources
Links to the shirts and candle:
Buttons and Bows Boutique: https://www.dreamingwideawake.org/buttonsandbows
Articles about Mother Trees and Suzanne Simard
Book: Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard
ONE EARTH: How Suzanne Simard uncovered the secret conversations of forests
The Nature Institute: Suzanne Simard's Journey: Finding Connectedness in the Forest
NPR: Trees Talk To Each Other. 'Mother Tree' Ecologist Hears Lessons For People, Too
TEDTalks by Suzanne Simard
The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Stories of Generosity and Cooperation by Kristin Ohlson
The Songs of Trees by David George Haskell
Woman and Nature by Susan Griffin
The Soil Will Save Us by Kristin Ohlson
Coppyright 2024 by Jena Ball. All Rights Reserved.
Gorgeous poem, and I loved this piece, Jena. It feels welcoming, and healing here, in your space. A place to find a way to go on. With hope. ♥
Jena writes so eloquently. I’m honored that she included my poem.
Jennifer, Seeing people vote for Trump and the GOP is like watching a goddamn train wreck in slow motion—you can’t look away, but you wish you could. I’ll never fully trust a white woman again, much less a white man, and I’m white, for God’s sake. But it’s the women who really twist the knife—there isn’t a vile enough word in any language to capture the depths of their betrayal.
Don’t let her funny videos fool you. She is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. She would send my wife and I to a concentration camp because we are lesbians. It’s that simple.