Tag: Tallahassee

Field Notes: My Pines

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Hurricane Michael blew through today. Michael made this probably the most memorable birthday I’ll ever have, but, more importantly, it bulldozed a heartbreaking path of destruction across a huge portion of the Florida panhandle I have come to know and love. I have a few photos of the aftermath in my neighborhood which I will post soon, when the power is restored, but I just wanted to mark the occasion tonight.

Here is a video of the pines in my backyard swaying in the Tropical Storm-force winds blowing in the storm’s wake. These trees stood long before I was born. They stood tall through Hurricanes Michael, Hermine, and Kate, just to name the direct hits; bent but never broken. They lost a sister tree in Hermine, but continue to smile down on our home, which is really their home. I love these trees fiercely. Their strength and resiliency can be an inspiration, I hope, for all of us in the difficult days ahead. When the complaints about trees and power outages start–and they will, very soon–these mighty pines will remind me why we value trees in Tallahassee, and why we choose to live with them.

Lichgate: Beneath the Spreading Oak

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A short winding path opens onto this unexpected glade of whimsy on the outer rim of Tallahassee’s student ghetto and it takes my breath away. A towering oak twists above the glade, its gnarled fingers pointing toward gardens, a quaint cottage. Delicate paths weave beneath the swooping limbs of the ancient oak at the darkened margins of the clearing, leading visitors past a fairy circle and over a tiny stone bridge to a verdant garden on one side of the cottage, and a wooded chautauqua nestled past the titular lichgate on the other side. On a humid Monday morning in August, I can only imagine the vernal lectures given here.

More after the jump.

My sweat pours and the grass wets my ankles and there is a suggestion of tension in the interplay between shafted sunlight and dense shade here; between blooms and insects and the corpse gate in the side yard of the empty cottage. Spiders weave little webs in the unwashed corners of the windows and transact their sullen intercourse in the shade beneath the eaves. The professor who built this place spent her life studying heroism and tragic ethics, but this place, her place, sings a quiet melody of enchantment. This is more glade than stoa.

I knock away the morning spiders and sit a moment on the wooden bench in the darkened lichgate. Tragedy and heroism, Tudor fantasy and merrie olde whimsy are a sort of tradition, but perhaps it is best to think of this place in light of another tradition: the resurrection gate. Look for the little signpost in an unexpected place on your weary journey. Pass along the winding path and let the oak-scented glade take your breath, too. Walk the maze and watch the insects pass from bloom to bloom.. Let the sweat pour and cling in the thick summer morning air. Then emerge from the glade with new energy.

Where:

Lichgate on High Road
1401 High Road
Tallahassee, Florida 32304