A Tree Dies (is Killed) in West Hollywood or Nothing of this World Lasts

As I begin this entry--which I will conclude later in the day after my errands are run--the sawing that began outside my bedroom window nearly three hours ago continues. I have resigned myself--with great difficulty--to the fact that the tree which gave me privacy, and comfort, made me feel as if I were a child in a leafy house, might soon be no more.

I was hoping, futilely, that the workers, shouting at one another incessantly for reasons that aren't clear to me, would only trim the few long dead branches. But after a fearful peek outside my blinds, I see that the noble tree is being slowly dismantled.

For now, I take my leave to get ready for the rest of my day. When I return to these pages to complete this entry, where once there was a piece of the life of nature, there could be a barren space.

🕔🕓🕕🕖🕘🕚  AND TIME PASSED. . . .

I have waited until the day after the sawing to complete this entry. I was terrified that the workers would be back to eradicate the foundation of the tree. They were back, but only to trim a few branches of the adjacent orange tree and complete some other unrelated tasks. But here's what happened.

Upon my return in the late afternoon, the saws were still whirring, and I hesitantly lifted my blinds to see what was the outcome. Later, as the workers loaded up the trucks with the once mighty branches of the old tree, I saw a couple of creatures surveying the scene. One appeared to be a Bluebird, and it seemed she was searching for something, no doubt a nest that had long since been destroyed, though I hoped I was wrong. And a baby squirrel leapt onto one of the sheared branches and ran down the trunk.

It looked pretty bad, but I have seen cutting decimation before and the tree has come back. And it occurred to me that the owner of the building wouldn't want to spend the money to completely uproot the trunk and the roots, and that made me happy.

Change. I am not alone in hating it. And that's all that is around us. Change. This tree is just a small thing. But I have worried since the fire that nearly claimed the apartment next door that the tree's days were numbered. And yesterday--now it is yesterday--I held my breath and tried not to become a full depressive at the idea that what I considered a special feature of my little dwelling would be just another aspect of the past. Actually I was trying not to be angry about it, and about the men, mere working men, so gleefully (it seemed to me) wreaking havoc on nature.

Used to be, through the spring and summer, that the branches and leaves filled the length and width of my window. It will be a long time before that happens again.

I try to accept that things, and people, don't last. Me either when it comes to that. It is the nature of existence. But as I am getting older, oddly, I am more rebellious about it. Perhaps that is also the nature of existence. The good side of the awareness of the transience of things and people upon which I have come to rely is the motivation to garner experience in a way that frankly, in a foolish effort to be safe, I avoided for the first two thirds of my life.

The great thing in the immediate circle of my little apartment. The tree wasn't killed. It is still there. It did need pruning, and while the effort may have been ruthless, it was not a coup de grace. If rain comes and gives the roots some sustenance, in the Spring new branches and leaves will begin to grow. In no time, the tree will be back to its fullness. I will enjoy it again.