It all started with pouring rain. And one of the reasons I was so happy was that I was thinking about the trees on my porch. How happy they must finally be not having to wait for me to water them.
I open the shades to see how happy they are.
When they’re happy their leaves point upward as opposed to the dry dragging downward look.
Amazingly I can actually see the difference.
I look to the left: two are swaying in joy. Then I look to the right and one is flat on the floor a little dirt spilled around the sides of the box.
It’s pouring and windy and I just woke up.
I want to go out and pick up the tree but is it worth the risk of getting drenched? And then G-d forbid a cold or worse?
I make a coffee and try to daven but all I can think about is the tree.
And more than the tree — is it a metaphor? Can you just pass something by I ask myself and let it lie on the floor for a day until the storm passes? You knew the winds would be coming! Why didn’t you put the tree in the corner of the porch before the storm?
It’s like a friend of mine who has nine kids. She knows that every morning she needs bread to send them off to school with sandwiches but somehow every other day it slips her mind.
And at six thirty in the morning she does this frantic dash to the store.
I think I know what happened with the trees. This is how it happens quite often.
The top beams from the succah which were supposed to be put on the side of the house were not put on the side and they blocked the corner I wanted to put the trees in.
See? Natural response. Blame the beams.
No. No. No. I could have enlisted someone to move the beams!
I make a hot chocolate and think it out. About how people actually take long trips to go skiing ride up mountains get bundled up and unbundled up.… I think more than half the fun is getting back to the lodge to have a hot chocolate.
Anyway back to the tree. You see how things happen? How sidetracked a person can get and then trees get left out in storms and fall?
If all the boys were home I’d send someone out to do the job. He’d wave from the window like a hero all bundled up out there on the stormy porch.
Maybe I should have could have would have and they wouldn’t have …
Blame the beams the school the neighbor’s boy the language the new country.
I can’t bear to see the tree lying there every time I pass the window.
The winds howl.
My boots are behind the front door. So is my coat. If it gets all wet I’ll throw it in the dryer. I put the rubber boots next to the couch. And the coat and a big green rain poncho I find. I go to the back rooms get lost and distracted a bit. Then the boots call. I put them on. Coat and poncho too. Scooper upper broom and I’m out.
Winds blowing rain pouring.
I lift up the tree and fill the dirt back in. I don’t feel the rain or the winds as I slide the tree into the corner. I secure it with the beams. I slide the other two trees to a place against a wall to block the winds.
It all takes about two minutes.
It’s such a small thing the tree and the dirt but at least I’m making a little order in a tiny corner. It says that one who makes shalom in his home makes shalom in all the world.
Then all of a sudden the rain turns to snow. This time the trees are in the best place I could possibly put them.
The snow falls and falls. And falls. And I can only see the top of a tree held up by the beams I blamed. There’s nothing I can do now. It happens like that we can only do our part.
No blame when snow falls. —