So picture this: a Northerner, me, stepping into the wild South. It’s like being dropped into a sauna where bugs fly, and yeah, you bet, flying termites are a real nightmare — who knew? But here I am, running away from a divorce — a decent one at that, if divorces can ever be called that. It left me feeling like I stepped out of one life and into a sort of twilight-zone existence.
In the midst of this chaos, I found myself moseying down to Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi — a Gulf Coast gem — and, weirdly enough, crushing on a tree. Seems a fitting time to tell the story when Easter and Earth Day and Arbor Day are all cozying up together. It’s like a big ol’ nature thing happening, you know?
One morning, wandering the streets with my caffeine craving, BAM, there it was! A sprawling southern live oak doing its weird, wild thing right next to a speed sign. It wasn’t just any branch; this sucker was on a mission. It touched the ground, dug in like it owned the place, and poof! A new trunk sprouted up like nature’s magic trick. What was this tree witchcraft? I had to know!
And here’s the thing: it’s a sort of sneaky trick called “layering.” Branch hits dirt, roots sprout, tree reincarnates—it’s a thing! It’s like a branch says, “Nah, I’m not done,” and starts a whole new tree life. Like a second act in the same play!
Zoom out and you see Quercus virginiana, the southern live oak, is the boss of the tree world in the Southeast. These trees are kinda rock stars — a thousand-plus years old, holding up entire ecosystems with Spanish moss making beards on branches and hosting ferns just hangin’ around. They’re tough as nails; people even trusted them with their lives during hurricanes. They’re the sturdy grandpas of trees.
And the way these oaks grow, splaying their branches like warm, leafy embraces, not soaring aloof like redwoods, but reaching out, like, “Hey, come here!” They’re the huggers of the tree world. Perfect for treehuggers wanting some plant love.
Two of these leafy giants stick out in my mind. The McDonogh Oak in New Orleans, chillin’ since before European explorers got nosy. Surviving Hurricane Katrina, it stands patched up but proud. Then there’s Friend Oak, a Loch Ness monster of a tree at Southern Miss. Spreading its limbs like playful snakes, reaching back to Columbus days.
In this time of rabbits and Easter eggs, it’s easy to forget our own ecosystem miracles. Easter, Earth Day, Arbor Day — a mash-up of life and death and all things evergreen. The southern live oak, with its life-insistent layering, whispers a lesson about renewal.
Getting back to Colorado, it hit me, seeing all those pine and scrub oaks waking from winter. Sure, they’re not towering show-offs like southern live oaks, but each one holds untapped wonder — every acorn a potential dynamo.
In all their chaos, trees mess with time, make you pause, and see that vitality is all around.
Easter eggs hide in plain sight, you know?
Catch you ponderin’, eh?
ML Cavanaugh, showing scars can be stories, more than skin-deep. @MLCavanaugh
