The Meryl Streep of Nature
The George Washington Memorial Parkway is a gorgeous road in Virginia that sidles up to the Potomac for nearly 30 miles. In some places, it’s open to views across the river into the District, allowing us glimpses of the Jefferson, Lincoln and Washington memorials. In some places, as in the stretch between Arlington and US 495 that connects Virginia to Maryland, it is tree-lined. Today I got to ride the tree-lined stretch.
It’s a perfect Fall day, crisp, bright sky, still and clear. The trees are bearing all their leaves. As in a box of bon bons, they snuggle together, a variety of trees nearly crushed up against one another, at attention, along this entire section of the road. No space between them. They look like ballerinas, plumped up in their puffy tutus, standing backstage with perfect posture, toes pointed just so, awaiting, anticipating their cue to enter. While they wait, the only movement is an occasional soft rustle when one of them shifts her weight nearly imperceptibly. The trees were like that today.
They stood, sentinels lined up on both sides of the highway, completely comfortable in who they are and what they were born to do. Like footmen poised behind every chair at a royal dinner, these trees will perform perfectly, exactly as they are expected to, at the exact right moment they should. So perfect, that at first, no one even notices that things have changed. It just gets done, and everyone is ready for the next course.
The trees know what will happen next: they will be required to turn colors. Change their garb from lush greens to reds, oranges, browns, yellows, gold, crimson, russet. They know that is coming. But today, they are still happy in their green puffiness.
The trees know that seasons happen purposefully. Trees will turn colors. Then they will begin to shimmy and shake, doing nature’s tribute to Gypsy Rose Lee – a demure strip that leaves the viewer wanting more and leaves the trees mostly bare. They don’t mind. They look really slender that way and their superb bone structures are revealed.
They know the snow will come, and they can’t wait. For that is when they become elegant examples of chiaroscuro. They serve as armatures, limbs outstretched, awaiting the pure whiteness that will make their skin seem darker and smoother. Glistening.
They also know that after the snows, a period of gentle soft pampering will ready them for the parenthood that will produce new offspring. Once again, they will get to see the little ones multiply, grow, bloom, then strut their stuff.
And so it goes along the George Washington Memorial Parkway, and in a badillion places on earth. What a show.
I fully expect that Celine Dion is compiling her accumulated notes and will do her best to duplicate the cycle as I have described it. Even if what she comes up with is a flashy version of good, she won’t succeed in fooling anyone. Las Vegas and all other contenders are automatically dropped to second place and lower. First place is permanently reserved for Mother.
As Joyce Kilmer wrote, it seems there may in fact be nothing as lovely as a tree. In poems, and wherever else they deign to be. Trees are the Meryl Streep of Nature: always deserving of first place, for sure. An easy win. No contest. Who would want to argue? We all get to sit back and watch in wonderment. We behold. And often, we break into spontaneous, appreciative applause. All is as it should be.