August 20:
I drove out to Deception Pass today to see an 800-year-old friend. Just knowing my old tree-friend is still there, still making oxygen for us, still standing tall, gives me hope for our planet. It was good to see her again.

I met NEW friends while I was there, too – Bucky the pup approached me with a wagging tail and a sweet doggy smile; and I met Mike, who was there with his young family. When Mike and I got to chatting, I learned he, too, had climbed Rainier – and I, of course, had to show him Dad’s Wikipedia page, and tell him about the paintings Dad had painted on K2 at 25,000 feet, back in 1953. (I love how Pop is still connecting me to new friends.)

I explored the beach for a bit – found an agate glowing up at me from a bed of pebbles, and snapped pictures of birds and driftwood and other cool beach-stuff. After I left Deception Pass, I drove to my favorite bookshop in Oak Harbor, The Book Rack, and treated myself to a new murder mystery (*A Cute Little Murder*) and a cupcake and cookie from their bakery. I sat there at a high table for a bit, swinging my legs, and reading from my new book, and soaking in the magic I always find in a bookstore.

And now a poem.

This is one I wrote for my old tree-friend back in 2022.

Be a Tree

The son and I talked about the tree
on the drive home.
850 years it had lived on this planet!
It had been seeded in the late 1100’s –
around the time of Genghis Khan
and England’s King John,
before Mansua Musa or Marco Polo,
da Vinci or Michelangelo.
Before Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Shakespeare,
Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. or Mooji.
It rooted into the soil as a tender seedling
and grew during the Black Plague; grew
while the ash from Krakatoa blocked the sun;
and while factories sprouted up across
the northern hemisphere. It grew while
soldiers fought to end slavery; while
World War I and World War II raged
across Europe; while our planet warmed;
and while division and despair
made humans sometimes wonder
if our planet was beyond repair.
It grew.
Quietly, without fanfare or medals
or approval or star ratings –
it lived, created oxygen, and grew –
because that is what trees do.
And maybe when it was older and sturdy,
indigenous children played in its bends
and called it “friend.”
I like to think that’s true.

Yesterday I visited my wise friend, Charles.
He could tell I was scared about our world.
“Just be present,” he said. “Be a tree.”

-Karen Molenaar Terrell
(Photos by Karen Molenaar Terrell.)