Fish and Oysters

There are cobblestone streets just south of downtown, with brick buildings built in the mid-eighteen hundreds of red clay. They are beautiful and warm, reflecting the light of the sun as fiery and luminous. I am a secret tree-hugger, but even more secret is the way I like to lean against an older brick wall. You really shouldn't do that alone, even if no one else appears to be about. It's best in a crowd situation such as waiting for a bus or in line to get into a restaurant. Then you are filling out the vignette of normalcy, which does make everyone feel better about safety and besides, the city has installed cameras everywhere. You could end up on the news.

I haven't hugged a tree in years, and nowadays a pat on the trunk passing by is all the communication I allow myself. But--and here she goes, friend---the vitality that a tree offers surges like a charge through your very core if you are bold enough to put your heart and cheek next to the bark. I swear it's therapy, whether self or forest generated, who cares, it makes me feel better. One hopes the tree benefits as well from us hugging, carbon dioxide-exhaling humans.

A friend of the trees was the late Bruce Kershner, my son's best friend's father, who passed away too, too early. He fought for old growth forests and environmental sanity, mapped and registered trees ancient and rare. He and his family were able to visit the sequoias out west, and I imagine the trees were as impressed with Bruce as he was with them. Here was the champion tree hugger of the millenium.

But I am too self-conscious, even though this city was once known for it's trees; as I said, the secret of secrets is my affection for old, orange-tinged brick. This town is mostly built of wood, but in sections where the first wave of immigrants lived, there are narrow Italianate homes or small cottages built of masonry. Many of the early builders were European, and so there are fairytales imbedded into some of the structures via application of terra cotta tiles or casts of animals. Even without the frou-frou, brick contains a story.

Clay and mortar stand for ages if cared for, and some of the warehouses that once were packed with goods stand empty and crumbling for lack of it. There is a blacksmith's shop that was in business until the seventies, next to that a building labeled "Fish and Oysters" in barely readable block print. Ah, who cannot be sentimental and look back at history, when these old buildings themselves now drop shards of red clay from their sides like tears?

Pressed blocks of clay that enabled commerce and walls of protection, sleep well. I will, too.