A Dappled Canopy

Southern live oaks often grow broader than they grow tall, sending limbs this way and that in a jumble of wood that often has to be carefully managed and pruned to avoid the intrusion of limbs into homes or back into the tree itself.  These majestic oaks can live for hundreds of years and their canopy, while not nearly as thick as that provided by the fir and redwood trees of the west, can stretch up to one hundred feet wide. In the brutally hot Florida summers, their dappled canopies provide precious shade for a wide range of tropical plants which, without some protection from the sun, would wither and die in a matter of days. 

Contrary to popular belief, when a hurricane rolls in, the live oak does not often die from being uprooted by strong winds while standing in soaked and saturated soil.  Rather, the live oak suffers most from a hurricane when its leaves are blown off by relentless winds and the tree cannot replace these life-giving, leafy photosynthesis factories fast enough to survive the next growing season.

As I look out my window every morning at several live oaks that dominate my postage stamp of a backyard at my home along the Gulf coast of Florida, I see, in the protective, yet dappled canopy of these massive trees, an apt metaphor for the past two years. COVID-19 and all the other upheaval and chaos that have come alongside the pandemic has certainly and dramatically impacted not only my well-being but my ability to recover that well-being I once had before the world turned upside down. The canopy that once protected me from the harshest of realities around me seems to have fallen away. 

Before the pandemic rolled in and disrupted just about everything, I could see and read about those harsh realities of life -- tragedy, suffering, loss, stress, frustration, and anger.  Yet somehow I was protected from the full force of them, not so much by a hedge, but by a gentle yet dappled canopy that allowed me to clearly see the world around me but still continue to grow, mature, and thrive in spite of it. The upheaval wrought by the pandemic combined with the loss of life and the politicization of public health allowed the full force of other crises, both immediate and existential, to break through into my own reality, unfiltered and unabated. As the pandemic now gradually ebbs to endemic, there is no simple return to what was. The relentless winds of anger, frustration, stress, loss, and chaos that have been stirred up by COVID-19 and its politicized sidekicks have stripped much of the protection away.   

I have to wonder whether that live oak within me that is my life energy will recover from the storm, restoring a broad canopy that protects me from the harshest things in this world while still allowing me to see them clearly.   

I asked the live oaks in the backyard about this.  They looked at me strangely from a tangle of limbs and pruning calluses, and said-- "Well, we are over a hundred years old and there have been quite a few hurricanes that have blown through in that time... you do the math."

So except for talking to trees and hearing them talk to me in response, I think I'm going to be just fine.  

Writing for No One

Although I have continued to generate plenty of technical writing during the COVID-19 pandemic, my capacity to indulge in simpler writing, for which a bibliography is not required or even laughable, has dropped to zero. The last time I blogged was in June of 2020 and only recently have I attempted to journal again, and sporadically at that. Expecting me to write a blog, which presumably would convey something meaningful to an audience of more than one, is on par with asking me to climb Mt. Everest. A lovely idea but well out of my reach. 

What's my problem? What's causing the writing constipation? Part of it is pandemic coping. The less I peek into the deeper reserves of my intellect, heart, and soul, the less I need to process the loss, dismay, frustration, isolation, grief, and many other pockets of darkness that the pandemic has brought into our lives. While the do more/feel less approach to living certainly takes the edge off of pain in the moment, it fails miserably as a long time coping mechanism. Emotions will simply not be stashed in a box for very long. Or so they tell me as they start hammering on the inside of the box in my soul, threatening to stage a coup (and worse, a public meltdown) if I don't attend to them in a timely manner.  

But beyond pandemic coping, there is the matter of American culture interfering with the cry of heart and mind to simply pour words onto paper to express what lies in the box labelled "Matters of Emotional Importance." Like many a good American, I have tried my best not to open that pesky box except on the rare occasion that a drop or two of salt water (or three or three thousand) decides to escape from my eyes. But beyond repressing my emotions, there is also the matter of my training and experience contributing to the dry spell.   

Classes on creative writing, technical writing ... any kind of writing really... have laid the well intentioned foundation for what is now almost a two year writer's block. It is a rare occasion indeed where on the first day of any one of these classes, the issue of an audience does not come up.  More typically, the first day of class is all about writing to the audience. Who's your audience? What do they want?  What's their background?  Are you writing to your audience? Who are you talking to? Who? Who? Who?

It's enough to drive me and even perhaps a few owls crazy.  And, more importantly, it really never occurred to me that it was OK to write to no audience at all.  After all, such is the premise of journalling.  But the trained writer and the engineer that occupy most of my intellectual identity make me a tad obsessive about seeking, considering, and addressing an audience even when I am journalling. And once you add in all the less-than-pleasant folks who have peer reviewed my technical work and writing over many years of being immersed in academia, the writing constipation is not at all surprising.   

To overcome writing constipation requires a well chosen and effective reLaxative. For me, this means waving goodbye to an audience and... wait for it ... writing for no one at all.  Although I doubt I will never be able to give up on going back through my writing, correcting typos, and fixing word choice here and there, I think there is some hope that I may be able to forget about delivering a coherent and meaningful message and simply reLax and let the words spill out onto the screen. 

And if later, I cringe because I can imagine a member of some faraway audience that may be offended, bored, or otherwise unimpressed with my words, then I will simply have to go back and take more reLaxative.  Because, the writing constipation, like the pandemic, must come to an end.   

But, I say that to no one, so who knows what will happen.