Pining for a Tree

This Saturday Israel will celebrate Tu Bishvat, the Jewish Arbor Day, signaling the beginning of spring. It’s one of the nicer holidays, symbolized by blooming almond trees. Its main activities involve eating dried fruit and planting trees. Nice.

In the spirit of the day I’ve been negotiating with the gardener to replace a dead tree near the curb with a laburnum. The laburnum is a beautiful tree with spectacular clusters of yellow flowers. While yellow is not one of my colors I’m willing to overlook this because of its sheer gorgeousness. I’m even willing to pay for it even though strictly speaking the area in question is not part of my garden.

The problem – and there always is one – is the resistance of the garden guy. For some reason I cannot seem to convince him of the beauty of my vision. We’re even having trouble agreeing on the facts. When I first raised this issue a year ago, he tried to convince me that the tree isn’t dead it’s just dormant. The conversation continued in the spirit of Monty Python’s parrot sketch (if it’s been a while since you’ve laughed at the comedy classic, it’s on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj8RIEQH7zA) and I was only waiting for him to tell me it’s pining for the fjords. A year later the tree just keeps getting more and more dormant.

Now we cannot seem to agree on exactly which tree we’re talking about. I’m saying the tree is at the end of a line of trees and so can be replaced with a different type. The garden guy says it’s in the middle and must be the same type to preserve the unity. Thus we arrive to the crux of the matter: the tree species. This is important because the trees that are there, and I have no clue what kind they are, are definitely unlovely. They’re spindly with little foliage – the ugly stepsisters of the tree kingdom. In fact, now that I think of it, they could easily be mistaken for dead. Maybe I should re-check my facts. Tell me, where do you find a tree’s pulse?