I Think Trees Are Much Nicer Than People

Last week, after yet another unpleasant run in with the couple who live in the flat below, and two vicious reviews in the Sunday papers, and a snarky letter from my mother, and the news report about teenagers putting cats in bins, I decided I was done with people. People, I finally realised, were on the whole, rather overrated. I was ready to admit I preferred trees.

You know where you stand with a tree; usually under the shade of its branches. They are equally handy for leaning upon. With a tree you don’t need to worry about being talked down to. You don’t have to put up with endless chit chat. You can make plans with a tree and be confident the tree will turn up at the agreed time and location. Trees are extremely reliable. In my experience, people aren’t. Trees look well dressed and are equally graceful, naked. Trees give much more than they ever take.

In the forty odd years I have been on this planet I have known some dreadful human beings. Liars. Cheaters. Politicians. Thieves and robbers. Sycophants. People have frequently let me down. I have yet to be disappointed by a tree. In fact, the truth is quite the opposite. I have known some rather inspirational trees.

I am thinking here of the monkey puzzle which once presided over my neighbour’s pond, each branch shaped like a bottle washer, each needle smooth as glass to the touch. That monkey puzzle could fairly keep a secret. It drank them in and stored them deep within its roots. As a youngster I spent hours sitting underneath that monkey puzzle offering my confidences up to its branches. It did not complain. It was always discrete. It kept my secrets like a stoppered bottle and did not judge nor interfere, not even on that summer evening when my neighbour’s son put his hands on me.

I am thinking also of the big horse chestnut which dominates the bottom field. Every autumn I’d go rifling round it, pocketing its prickly seed. The tree would drop dozens and hundreds of tiny green bombs, hoping they’d find their way down to the mulchy earth. Each year I’d appear with a plastic bucket and steal all but the smallest, meanest conkers. Then string them up and pitch them round the school playground til there was nothing left but smithereens. You’d think the chestnut might have stopped providing, you’d think it would have grown jealous of its seed. But no, not once, in all my childhood autumns, did it appear anything but overly generous. Generosity’s a given with trees.

As is humility. A tree’s forever giving of itself. For example,  the cedar I encountered last summer whilst hiking through the Scottish Glens. It proved to be the most humble of trees. When I required wood for a strip canoe, it quietly snuck up upon me and presented itself as suitable. This cedar did not resist my axe or complain when I skimmed it into fluid strips. It bowed. It bent. It endured drowning. It bore me miles away from its severed roots. And did it protest or grumble beneath the weight of me? I can assure you it did not. Instead the cedar carried me safely from river’s source to river’s mouth and appeared delight to be so well-used.

Which is not the experience I’ve had with people. People frequently complain about feeling used. They are rarely humble or generous and often inclined to interfere. You take your chances when you work with people. Some are nice. Most are not. You cannot tell which sort you’re dealing with until you’re up close and bearing the brunt of them. Which is why I’ve decided I’m done with people. I am sticking to trees from now on.

Inspired by a line from Agatha Christie’s 1952 novel, Mrs McGinty’s Dead.