I was thinking about trees. One morning as I drove Lauren to her babysitter (too cold a word for a wonderful woman who is truly a second mom for her) I pointed out the trees again and told her how much I love trees. They come into our conversations (if one can actually have a conversation as such with a 2-year-old!) a lot. I planted three trees in the front lawn, and there were already two. I've always had the kids checking them out when we're outside.

I am in awe over how skilled the city trimmers have gotten lately, in most places, at revealing each tree's own personality when they bare the branches and clear out the overgrowth. I think the tree feels some relief from it. The good trimmers would say that, I'm sure. Here in Duarte, though, they still subscribe to creating gumdrops on sticks out of these grand old masters lining the main streets. I grieve for the trees, so misunderstood, and for us, not to get to know them for who they really are.

On our block I have a favorite pair of what I think are Maple. In the summer they seem like precocious identical twins, holding strong and tall on their property, not having to share their space with any others except the little flowers and small shrubs around the bottom. But in winter they’re more like brother and sister, one losing all its leaves and the other not, but seemingly reaching its ample limbs through and around to blanket its sibling from the elements.

I love driving through neighborhoods with such a variety of trees they look like somebody got out the architect's template of landscaping and stenciled every different one. Some bushy, some weepy, so tall, all different greens and densities. Even when all they are is a single thickness pen line. I cherish the stick figure elephant a little friend drew and marvel at how it could look so big with only a single line for a body.

I was there when the cherry blossoms came out in Washington, D.C., spring of 1962.