There is nothing like a chainsaw to make a man feel like a man. I caught myself in a dramatic pose sinking that steel into the side of a fallen tree, slinging it like a weapon, wondering how ominous and deadly I looked, wondering how long it would take until I hurt myself. The angry groaning sound of the chainsaw with the sawdust shooting out the sides and the whole tree trembling under the weight of me. Limbs like bones. The tree trunk divided into rounds for me to split, season, and burn. I felt like a man.

But the first problem with me and chainsaws is I don’t understand how they work. I use mine so rarely, I forget how to tighten the chain. I do know you want the chain snug, with no slack, so the chain doesn’t whirl off mid-cut. I do not climb into trees with the chainsaw and I never lift it over my head. I mind the cutting zone so I don’t slip and cut my legs or feet. I always wear boots, goggles, ear protection, and gloves. The times I have felled trees have gone well, though not as planned.

This last tree came down on its own, not far from the house. It was a sad sight to see it on its side with the root ball exposed. But I couldn’t tolerate that level of mess or disorder so I set right to it, lopping off limbs, organizing pieces by size, wheeling them off by the road.

If you’ve ever wrangled with a fallen tree you realize how much tree there is when you have to cut it down piece by piece. It was a tangled mess. I got myself in a dither over it and had to take it step by step, had to talk myself down. The fallen tree is a metaphor for any large project that feels daunting at first, but if you just focus on the small parts without getting overwhelmed it won’t take as long to complete.

The fallen tree was also a metaphor for other nearby trees that could fall on the house (or more accurately, a foreshadowing). So I called my old arborist friend John Lewis out and met him in the driveway. He was taller than I remembered, gallant and peppy, long strides up the side of the yard to the back, to the Douglas fir by the chicken coop he said might have a lean to it the last time he was here.

John Lewis steadied himself against the base of that tall tree and leaned into it, as if he might actually push the tree over, then stepped back and examined the buttressing about the base, looked long and hard into the tops of it, said I wouldn’t condemn it, not this one. But then there was another Doug fir just behind it, and right away John Lewis cried out, cat-faced canker! And fingered the edges of that dark oozing sore, the sap leaking out, a heinous black pattern of rot and disease right at the fulcrum. This tree was a good 200’ tall, 24 inches in diameter at the base, and leaning right toward the house. It would cut through the master bedroom, dining room, and den.

It would cost a few thousand dollars to take out that tree and clean up another, co-dominant one by the berm, but I was glad to have caught it before it came down on the house. I felt responsible and grown-up, which I don’t feel nearly enough, glad we could afford it. And I felt like a man for taking care of it, for doing things others might not notice, but I would.

Categories: Memoir, writing

Tags: Creative Nonfiction, pacific northwest