It’s the trees. The trees get me every time.
When you walk the sidewalks of Fairhope, Alabama, it’s the trees that impress you most. It’s not the upscale homes, nor the Mayberry-like storefronts, which all give you the impression that you have fallen into a Rockwellian planned urban development.
No. It’s the live oaks.
They tower over the byways like ancestors. Trunks as thick as Buicks. Tall as ferris wheels. Giant, spidery arms, draping over roadways, intertwining in a giant web, letting tiny slivers of sunlight between their fingers.
Their bark is covered in brilliant green resurrection ferns, which grow directly into the gnarled skin of each tree.
Resurrection ferns do not steal water and nutrients from the oaks; they absorb nutrition from the air. During drought, the ferns conserve water by shriveling and turning brown. But they’re just sleeping, really. Once moisture returns, they “resurrect,” unfurling their fronds of verdant green.
But, oh, the trees.
As you walk through the groves of Quercus virginianas, you feel each tree’s personality. Don’t let anyone tell you that trees don’t have personalities.
One tree is strong and stalwart, almost symmetrically bold in its warrior pose. Another tree is slender, flexible, twisting its arms, gyrating in all directions, like the class clown in a senior photo.
A stroll through Fairhope feels like walking through a private social club of Southern live oaks. They gather together. Like they’re mingling. You feel like a crawling toddler, scuffling along the floor of your parents’ living room during a cocktail party. Crawling through the forest of adult legs, hearing adult conversations above you, but you have no idea what they’re saying.
Two massive trees in the distance have arms intertwined, almost like they are touching. It looks like they are holding hands. I’ve never seen trees do this before. It’s amazing.
“Trees can be in love,” says an old man who I meet in the park. He’s sitting on a bench, staring at trees, waiting for his Pomerainan to finish watering the local vegetation.
“We humans think we’re the only ones who can experience love,” the old man says. “But we have a lot to learn from trees.”
In the 1980s, a massive tree named “Inspiration Oak” grew in Fairhope. It was believed she was 500 years old, dating back to Columbus’s heyday. Some of her limbs were 200 feet long. Inspiration’s trunk was wider than some two-car garages.
There was a land dispute between Baldwin County and her property owner. One fateful October, an anonymous individual with a chainsaw mangled her 27-foot-round trunk, cutting off the tree’s food supply.
The story made national headlines. But what happened next surprised nobody who loves trees.
Support for Inspiration came pouring in from around the world.
People traveled to Fairhope from all over the nation, all over globe to see her before she passed. They came from 195 countries. They brought her gifts. They said prayers. They wept over her.
Tree surgeons volunteered to try to save her. Arborists road-tripped across the country, on their own dimes, to help her. People raised funds for her. People tried to build a park for her.
Children sent letters to her. Some letters came in English. Others, in foreign languages.
“Dear tree,” wrote a boy named Tommy. “I love you. Here’s $1. Get medicine and get well quick.”
When she fell, Auburn University ran some tests. Turns out she wasn’t 500 years old. But it didn’t matter. What mattered back then—what matters today—is that people cared.
People actually cared. And they still do care. In fact, more people care than those who don’t. Loving kindness is not dead. Sometimes it is only sleeping.
The old man was right. We have a lot we can learn from trees.