Place and Placelessness in America
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In one place grain grows best, in another, vines;
Another’s good for the cultivation of trees.
First he examines the needles, their suppleness and vibrancy and length. It’s not good to have a Christmas tree with short or too-flat needles, just like it’s not good to have a Christmas tree with spindly branches. They cannot bear the ornaments. Too many glass orbs have encountered death by cold tile, slipping off the boughs unobstructed. The needles need to be soft but obstinate in their attachment to the branch. That’s the only way to know the tree will last the season. Once cut, a tree can hold on to life’s aura a long time; less so its needles. A dead dead tree has no place in the parlor tree stand; it can be domesticated only through the conflagration of the fireplace. Besides, dried needles on a branch have no scent, and the fragrance of the evergreen is as integral to Christmas as its physique. In the picking out of the Christmas tree, then, my father’s first step is examining the needles.
As I sit in a D.C. café with East Coast friends a few days before traveling home for the holidays, they wonder aloud, “What even is the Northwest? We have no idea.”
I have a one-word answer with a footnote of world history on the tip of my tongue: “Trees,” I respond. “An empire of trees.”
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