An ode to the tree with the lights in it

In her memoir Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, the late Annie Dillard tells an anecdote about a girl who has just undergone surgery to remove her cataracts, allowing her to see for the first time. Stretching out her hand to touch the bark of a tree, this young girl marvels at what she calls “the tree with the lights in it,” a brilliant pastiche of color which has not yet registered in her mind as a three-dimensional object (Chapter 2).

Dillard goes on to describe how she attempted to find such a tree during her walks in nature. For years, she hungers to discover such a sight, but she eventually forgets about the whole endeavor. Then, on a random walk by Tinker Creek, the tree with the lights in it appears before her, unbidden and radiant. Dillard describes her vision thus: “[i]t was less like seeing than like being for the first time, knocked breathless by a powerful glance” (Chapter 2).

I was walking leisurely in Riverside Park when the same shock happened to me. Golden sun cast leaves into a verdant halo, the blue sky tender and pale behind them. The tree with the lights in it—Dillard’s phrase immediately came to mind as I strolled down the rustling canopy of light and sound.

This is why I love Riverside Park—despite the random bugs that fling themselves onto my laptop and the occasional cloud of weed that drifts my way, the park provides such a simple and extended place of beauty to rest in. Benches line the way, joggers and dog-walkers tramp along. When campus feels loud, pretentious, and overwhelming, the humble chorus of thousands and thousands of leaves brushing edges reminds me to breathe.

Not to discredit the magnificence of a Low Library sunset—I’ve taken way too many fawning photos of pink clouds stretched across tangerine skies. But I will always vouch for coming back to a beauty where man’s role was to cultivate and not create, to listen for rather than to speak forth light.

Works Cited
Dillard, Annie. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. HarperCollins, 2007, EPub.

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