Haunted Places and Spaces
It’s late autumn in Vermont, and I posted a photo of a nearby oak in its full glory: richly reddened leaves, wide crown, sunlight flaring around it. Someone who lives about 20 miles north asked me for some acorns, so she could encourage oaks like this one. I crouched among the rustling fallen leaves, seeing many acorn caps removed from the nuts, but few intact acorns — red squirrels live here, and they’ve been busy. Still, I collected about half a cup of seed acorns for her, and delivered them last night.
When I was very small, maybe three or four, my mother helped me plant an acorn in a flowerpot. A little tree grew; we transplanted it together into the “side yard” of the small white house where we lived, across the road from the riding stables.
Around 2003, I drove my solidly grounded, much-adored, third-and-final husband to New Jersey to visit my relatives, and detoured past that house. To my astonishment, an oak towered above it. There could be no doubt: “I planted that!”
Now, some 20 years later, I’m half afraid to take that route again. What if some subsequent homeowner considered that oak too large, too much in the way, and it’s gone? Though I’ve moved on in where my “home” is, that tree marks a place that holds meaning for me.
