Pruning Part II

I’m guilty of forging weak friendships. I’ve made friends to slough off in the name of freedom—so I could leave a place without feeling guilty. I’ve recently come to a place to stay for awhile. I work in the office of an orchard. It’s less than a mile from my hometown.  I spend the days with friends I’ve known all my life, though at one point I forgot they were friends. Every time they ask about my family or my dog, or request that I babysit a son or daughter, I feel as a thread in a tapestry. Every gesture and familiarity sews me in a little tighter. This has shaken my definition of freedom.  It’s creating a beauty I’ve never known. 

I watch the workers in the apple orchards. They prune their trees in the winter. When January and its lake effect snow howl through western Michigan, the workers bundle up, climb their ladders, and prune with vigor. I s’pose falling from a  ladder hurts less in the snow. For years, I’ve been copying the the commercial apple growers, trudging out while the trees sleep to cut their limbs. The idea is to prune while the trees lie dormant so they’re energized for regrowth in the spring. This year, I spoke to an apple grower like me, a backyard grower, so to speak. “What’s wrong with my trees? They concentrate all wrong—producing excess bark and shoots rather than apples.”  Sometimes I get mad. Sometimes I kick one.

My fellow backyard grower squints as though reading tiny print. “Prune when your trees are most alive. It’s okay for big orchards to prune the trees while they sleep—they have the time and labor to continue pruning when necessary. You and I, we need to stop the trees from producing extra shoots during growing season. Rid the tree of the shoots at its liveliest and the shoots will stay away in January. Catch up, at least for a few years.”

So I prune the trees before they go to sleep. Maybe they’ll concentrate on producing fruit next year instead of producing what is useless.  I babysit when I need to babysit. I stop and pet my neighbor’s dog. I answer questions honestly and ask questions honestly. “My father is still sick. Is your husband’s shoulder healing?” The sewing continues and sometimes I struggle, longing to grow in a thousand different directions. Isolation and freedom collide. 

So I prune the trees before they go to sleep. 

Maybe they’ll concentrate on producing fruit next year instead of producing what is useless.