I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up.
There is a large Peppercorn tree behind my girlfriend’s childhood home. Her parents often complain about the copious amounts of dried peppercorns that are left in the yard after the San Bernardino wind brushes each branch. I admit, the sensation of stepping on a peppercorn with your bare foot is not a pleasant sensation. It does not hurt by any means, but after a while, the pale yellow pods feel like glass. Again, it does not hurt.
The tree climbs a great height and really is something beautiful. The beauty, however, does not come from the tree itself; it comes from the chaotic game of survival it has found itself in for the past approximately 20 human years. A complex system of English Ivy climbs its trunk and branches. Species of Ivy are known to have a contentious relationship with trees of all kinds. They are an invasive plant that strangles new growth and suffocates them of sunlight. These two organisms have been locked in a battle for survival for decades. They serve as the same kind of burden a loud, arguing neighbor couple in the suburbs serves. That itch in the same spot of your scalp that never goes away and that seems to present itself in moments where you are the most at peace.
Her parents have been arguing with the neighbors to cut it down for years. Occasionally, the neighbor will trim it back so that it is not crossing into their yard as much, and so that it is slightly more pleasant. The growth returns rapidly, however. A walk outback becomes a sweep of the entire yard to, at least for the one hour that it will last, clean the yard of those loud-feeling peppercorns. Why don't they cut that thing down? It’s being overtaken by Ivy anyways and is just an eyesore. Nothing…until three weeks later for a repeat of your brain’s performance. Peace, frustration, labor, spurn, forget.
Sitting in the spa at night beneath the peppercorn tree. The occasional wafting of peppercorns through my toes as they are moved by the jets. I cannot see the stars as well as I’d like to. I do not cast any annoyance on the hovering peppercorn tree though. I adhere my glare to the haze of light echoed onto the suburban ceiling of Upland, California. This organism cannot help being what it is, where it is, and when it is. Enjoy the kind shade it gives you. It will not be there forever. And peppercorns are a small price to pay for respite from the unforgiving Inland Empire sun. This tree is being fought by the people that own it to keep it aesthetically to their liking. It is being fought by my girlfriend’s parents to be cut down and dealt with. Most of all and most visible however, it is being strangled by another life form that is only living the way it knows how to. Grow, overcome, grow. I continue trying to look past the haze to make out any semblance of stars or planets.
What do astronauts do?
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
-ARS
