The very first time I travelled from faraway San Diego to the remote reaches of a Western Kentucky forest, I fell swoopy-doopy in love. The Realtor I’d visited was in Elizabethtown. I wanted to build a cabin in the woods. Nada, nothing available, all the woods being sectioned up and bulldozed for subdivisions, sadness. The hour I was to leave the motel for the airport, she called and breathlessly rushed to say she’d just had a miracle pop up on her screen.
I sped over and met her at the door. She told me a 100 acre forested lot just came up on the wire, not even formally listed yet. And they only wanted $35,000 for it! She got a somber look and added that it was almost a hundred miles west.
We went and we poked around a little in the pouring rain. Gee, I wasn’t sure…We went back to the Realtor’s house and she let me stay there.
I called home and said I’d be away for one additional day, then remembered to change the flight due to family emergency. Sort of… The next morning I drove back out and everything seemed different, me and the trees in cosmic communion. The wonderfully sunny day was rather far along before I’d stopped wandering the deer paths, swooning in awe of the cacophony of birdsong and ogling the brilliant wildflowers. Before I got back in the car, felt the strangest, I couldn’t believe I was doing it compulsion. I hugged a big ‘ol tree. Tight.
I got back to the Realtor’s and picked up my plunder so I could return to the airport in Louisville. I had to talk a 35 grand commitment over with Bob, we had to look over the finances, we had to see if this could integrate into our plans, I had to convince him with a thousand pictures. I drove away. About 100 feet.
I ran back crying and signed the papers.
I have NEVER regretted it.
It’s Love A Tree Day, and as ABBA sang, “I do, I do, Id, I do, I do!”
Holy cow, just writing this has me in tears.
How Would You Do It? 