Big Old Trees

There’s a street near my house that used to have large and majestic trees hanging over the road that provided cool shade even on the hottest summer day. For one block it felt like driving through Sherwood Forest. Now half the trees are gone, trimmed back or cut down because they were old, and big limbs fall off even in gentle storms. The street has a different feel to it. It’s now like every other streamlined road that takes me from here to there.

The land we live on influences how we feel. There are other places in town that still catch my attention. I can’t go along Grandview Drive without picking up a sense of inspiration that stays with me throughout the day. I can’t watch the Illinois River flow by without feeling its surging power and the endless movement of the earth. I can’t hike through the quiet of the Forest Park Preserve and not think that I’ve stepped two hundred years into the past when all of Illinois was like this. And I can’t drive through the countryside without seeing the shape of the land and not be moved by its close relationship with the sky.

As much as we affect changes on the land, so the land changes us.