27 Branches

Welcome to 27 Branches. I honestly don’t have a feel for where this blog will take me, and I’m okay with that. The whole thing was as much a surprise (although I’m not sure it should have been) to me as it is to you.

A few weeks ago, my Aunt and Uncle came to visit Boston. While I was studying abroad a few years ago, they were living in a small town outside of Prague. Two of my classmates and I decided to fly over for a weekend. Jan and Ray (my aunt and uncle) were actually flying back to the United States the Saturday of our visit. But they graciously spent their last day and night in Prague with their nephew and two fellow college students, showing off a city that despite its rich history needs little in the way of words to inspire awe. Needless to say, I hadt to step my tour guide game up to previously undiscovered level for their trip. Little did I know, I would discover more about this beautiful, historic city in their short trip than I had in the 2 1/2 years prior.

One morning I decided to take them to a place I’d never actually visited myself and had really only heard of in passing. After following the google maps directions through Brookline, we found ourselves parallel parking on Arborway. We walked back to the entrance and discovered a strange new locale.

To really understand the contrast you need to know that we’d spent the previous day on the Freedom Trail in the heart of downtown Boston on one of the first nice days of the summer. People were everywhere. Quincy Market was wall-to-wall people, stopping and starting, weaving and bobbing, moving with the chaos expected from such a mob. A little over a month before, I’d taken my cousin and her 14-month old on a shorter version of the same walk and there was no one around. We walked at our leisure, driven only by the still wintry feel of that April weekend.

Despite the line of cars along Arborway, the Arboretum felt empty. We’d encounter small pockets of tree-gazers and sight seekers from time to time, but on the whole the paths and trees were ours for the taking. And with each step I took, I realized I’d found a new node, a sacred space to re-explore a head space I’d ignored for fart too long.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We spent the rest of the morning wandering along the paths absorbing sights of Japanese Maples, White Oaks, Hackberries, and the Lilacs. I could taste the transcendence and see the pollen. It was all I could do to restrain my pleasure and my sneezes. Walking through those trees was like falling in love, feeling intimately familiar with and engagingly mystified by a grove in the midst of the sprawl.

I could go on like this for a while, but I want to stop for a various number of reasons. 1. This was my first visit to the Arboretum. Some of you out there may have been more times than you can count and have much more to offer to this conversation. 2. This was my first of hopefully many visits and this is the first of many posts, so I don’t want to give away too much today. and 3. I chose the title 27 Branches for a reason. While I would like this space to primarily be concerned with trees and nature in general, I am well aware of the ways the ideas I am hoping to unpack can branch their way into our lives and I wanted that idea to be present from the outset. 4. I just don’t have the ability to sum up in one sitting the subjectivity of this place.

So now that all that is out there, I hope you’re willing to be patient with me as I explore this new love. I’ve got a number of ideas for the future of this blog, but I know that some will bear fruit, while others will wither and die. Enjoy the photos and the thoughts. Feel free to contribute your own.