Ammi Midstokke: Learning to see the forest for the trees

In a short time, half our country is going to be rather disappointed.

Somehow, many of us seem to think there is a winning side and a losing side. I suppose it is the way of things: Once we fought to create a place of our own, and now we’ll divide that into halves of a dissonant argument. Then maybe we’ll keep slicing it up because somewhere along the way we lost the ability to keep our minds open to the possibility that other opinions matter.

I’m not exactly sure where we went wrong, but it probably has something to do with the invention of decaf coffee.

The experiences of my fellow Americans seem to differ so greatly from one another, that we cannot imagine the other’s to be real or true, valid, or of value.

We argue for our causes with passion and a kind of righteous assuredness that this issue, or that one, is the crux of the complicated circumstance in which we find ourselves. Is it the literature in libraries we are to blame? The environmentalists and their stunted policies? Gender confusion or taxing the wealthy? The right? The left? Most important is that blame is assigned.

It’s times like these I appreciate my lack of conviction. It is also when I most want to retreat into a natural world that seems to be more patient in its progress, more accommodating to a world order of accommodation and acceptance. But most of all, I’m soothed by the knowledge that it is going to far outlive our yard signs and our rhetoric.

It’s a good time to be a nihilist and lean heavily on none of this matters. It’s also a good time to be a person of religion and lean heavily on faith. I just keep leaning on the trees.

They are stoic and patient things, except for perhaps those ponderosas, what with their fast growth and crowding. They choke out the fir saplings on my property until they are spindly things with a thousand hopeless branches looking for sun they’ll never see. When they die, they are the kindling of a future forest fire.

The few birch that have survived climate change are growing in their own isolated copse in the draw on the southwest corner. They don’t mingle beyond this place, like a group of girls that always plays together at recess and never lets anyone join. To the north are the cedars, looking parched either out of protest about my house or the longer summers.

I planted some more deciduous trees: bright red maples, dogwood. Things the garden store told me would grow well and make shade, but I wouldn’t have to wait a generation to notice. Turns out the moose really like those, so I won’t have to wait at all. Freshly planted but unfenced trees are the Michelin of moose restaurants.

I’m almost relieved to have something acutely relevant to fret about. I’d rather look out my window at a snapped maple than at the headlines. Mental hygiene during election season consists mostly of burying my head in the sand and pretending my panic attacks are just too much coffee. Then I worry about the collective of my fellow country folk. You must be exhausted. How will we care for each other after this?

One thing is for certain: We’re all going to need some care.

When I work in my yard, it is with a pair of small garden shears. I clip carefully away at twigs and overgrowth for hours, then stand back to see if any difference has been made. It’s slow work, but I become intimately familiar with the land and flora. I begin to understand why this tree won’t grow, or how too much clearing in one area invites bothersome things. I get curious, which is the only way to be, because I really know nothing about trees and plants and this leaves me to just wondering.

This is also true about so many of the things that matter deeply to half our population, issues of which I have little experience or understanding. I want to dive in there with my pruning shears and cut away the blame and vitriol, get to down to the soil and gain knowledge, not for the sake of weaponizing it, as we often do, but for the sake of compassion and empathy.

I want to learn how to see the forest for the trees. I hope next week, we can all take a collective breath and do the same.

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammim@spokesman.com.