Leaves

An American walnut tree stands behind my house in my neighbors' yard. It is a magnificent tree. It shields my property from the untidy back porches of that neighboring three-story building, a condominium building which has seen better days. The tree hosts squirrels and cardinals. The lazy neighborhood cats hover about it for glimpses of imagined prey. 

When I moved in, I began to worry about the large walnut leaves in my gutters. Clogged gutters in New England are the cause of endless problems. Then I noticed that the leaves are too big to readily fit into my gutters when they fall. The torrent of June walnuts onto my car and all about the back of the house was a fascinating annoyance. The squirrels left few nuts unopened. Their cast off shells fell like gravel from the tree's thick branches, where the sated rodents screeched their rasping territorial cries. The tree has grown a large root which has cracked my driveway. The crack is at the far end of the driveway. I can live with that. 

I like to sweep. I spent many mornings cleaning up after the squirrels and birds. The shell fragments and leaves went into a barrel, designated for mulch and compost. The barrel is nearly full now in Autumn. The walnut leaves are falling heavily with every rain. I sweep and rake the majority of the crop onto my small back yard for mulching over winter. 

My deceased mother hated fallen leaves. Her house was surrounded by huge maple trees, which resided safely in neighboring yards. I say "safely" because she would have cut them all down if she had been able to. We still joke about the "attack of the killer trees". Her sincere personification of the maples into dark, hateful forces who were determined to make her life miserable still makes me chuckle. 

My own ambivalence about the inconvenience of fallen leaves as an urban property owner, despite my deep love of trees, tells me that my human mind and natural humanity are somewhat unbalanced. Trees are essential to my evolution and survival as an animal on this planet. Why should I resent a gorgeous walnut tree for being what it is? I shouldn't. I should appreciate it and tend to it. 

I try to understand that peace with trees and other growing things on my property comes with becoming a servant to them, rather than an adversary. This is a familiar lesson to me as a humanist. My nursing career taught me the same lesson about people in my environment. This requires the humility which comes from acknowledging my dependence on the full range of life on the planet for my own survival. Humanism, as I see it, is based in this realization.