{"id":7859,"date":"2021-06-13T14:06:30","date_gmt":"2021-06-13T19:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/?p=7859"},"modified":"2021-06-13T14:06:30","modified_gmt":"2021-06-13T19:06:30","slug":"a-tree-grows-in-georgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/2021\/06\/a-tree-grows-in-georgia\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tree Grows in Georgia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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PLUCKED OUT<\/strong> <\/span>of my normal routine and my familiar landscape and plopped into the middle of a family reunion (of family other than my own) in coastal Georgia, I am finding my equilibrium in the trees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Not that I\u2019m climbing them or anything (way too tall for that), but walking among the live oaks, with their gauzy curtains of Spanish moss, and under the towering pines that punctuate the blue (sometimes thunderstorm-black) sky is both soothing and awe-inspiring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Crepe myrtles and evergreen magnolias are instant reminders that I\u2019m not in New England anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miles of majestic marshland define these Georgia islands. Though much grander than the marshy coastline of Delaware where my family is from, this, too, is comforting and calming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, just sayin\u2019 \u2013 I\u2019m not really an air-conditioning person and it is eternally chilly indoors. The thick, sticky humidity seems somehow more tangible to me, and definitely familiar, a part of my childhood DNA never to be erased. Along with the high heat index, I feel like I\u2019m in a sauna sweating out the long Vineyard winter.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But the trees are something else. Some are hundreds of years old:\u00a0Quercus virginiana<\/em><\/a>, the southern live oak, can live for 500 years;\u00a0Pinus palustris<\/em><\/a>, longleaf pine, almost as many (or so I read!). Many are over a hundred feet tall or wide, with lateral roots extending even farther. They are older, bigger, and I think wiser than us, with survival instincts and subtle communication systems we will never know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My fascination with trees is partly just a new interest (I\u2019m going to ask for The Tree Book <\/a>by Michael A. Dirr and Keith S. Warren for my birthday!). But also it\u2019s not lost on me why I\u2019m focused on them here, where I\u2019m experiencing a (gentle) growth spurt in my role as a new limb on an old family tree, a tree that has lost the last of a generation.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We are here to celebrate the life of my partner\u2019s mother (she was the youngest of 11 children), but just as importantly to acknowledge the strength and connection of the remaining branches \u2013 the four siblings, the grandchildren, and the people they love and call family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Branches (like people) grow in different directions, depending on their environment \u2013 some get twisted and then straighten out, some spring out ahead of the others, only to get knocked back in a hurricane, some stay safely low and close to the trunk. But all are part of the same tree, with roots going deep and wide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Occasionally an old branch grows a new limb, which leafs out and gathers sunlight and food for the tree, signaling it to send down new roots to bring water back to sustain the new growth \u2013 and the old. Trees are pretty smart, aren\u2019t they?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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PLUCKED OUT of my normal routine and my familiar landscape and plopped into the middle of a family reunion (of family other than my own) in coastal Georgia, I am finding my equilibrium in the trees. Not that I\u2019m climbing them or anything (way too tall for that), but walking among the live oaks, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[168,162,6,85],"tags":[207,204,206,205],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7859"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7859"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7870,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7859\/revisions\/7870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}