I find the sounds of the leaves soothing as they brush against the brick outside my window.
~ Student Local Observation
By the ignorant eye, my occupancy of the far-left parking lot corner is neglected upon. Named by a small stained-white paper tag, I am simply the Greenspire Linden left of Hole 1, residing amongst the two cherries and two maples. I am not distinguished for my past, nor my purpose, but instead my appearance. The ignorant individuals overlook that I grew up in an enchanting realm described as "Lowes," alongside my thirteen other siblings; since our budding, I have grown one branch to represent each sibling.
~ Student Local Observation (from the perspective of the tree)
One of the great things, for me, about your Local Observations is that they prompt me to see the things that you write about with new eyes. From time to time, I will respond to your Local Observations by bringing together some of the things I’ve noticed based on your noticing.
Several of you, for example, are writing about trees. A few weeks ago David Byrne (of Talking Heads) was interviewed by the New York Times. In response to the question of what books are on his night stand he said: "The Overstory, by Richard Powers, taking the long view: a poetic view of human generations and activity measured in tree-time. The writing is beautiful and often heartbreaking. . . . The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben. Yes, there’s a tree theme.”
His comments both made me think of your Local Observations and think about how there’s a tree theme in much of contemporary culture these days. As it happens, we’ll be reading a section from Wohlleben’s book next semester and I almost assigned a section from The Overstory for this course as well.
The other point that caught my attention in Byrne’s comment is tree-time. What is that? How does it work? How does it differ from human time? We can come back to these questions next semester when we’ll be addressing the arts of time.
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