Cedar

October 20, 2025

Greetings from the seer,

In almost every moment, nearly everywhere you look, there is something waiting to be known. And known.  Just when I think I understand that truth, I realize I am barely awake to it.

About a week ago my son-in-life Tim offered to trim away at the creeping edge of the forest, which if left to its intention would eventually grow over us.  We cleared away vines and cut errant limbs and wild litter.  Tim focused on finding Buckthorn, an invasive specie of tree, and his nemesis, which he dispatched without mercy.

I was left to cut deadfall, which requires no sophisticated discernment.  It’s simple, satisfying work.  Among my targets was a small tree, maybe twenty feet, no bigger around than a loaf of French bread.  The tree had fallen more than a decade ago, hidden by the tangle of wild growth.  It was settled into the soil, bedded down for the longest of naps. 

My intention was to haul it to the raw woods at the edge of the property, but once it was freed from the dirt, it was surprisingly heavy, so I applied the chainsaw. After the first cut, the air was filled with a new aroma, pungent and familiar.  Cedar.

I looked at the core of the tree and the center was pale wine, the rings were sketched in deeper whorls of burgundy.  I touched it, fully expecting it to stain my fingertip it was so vivid.  And the fragrance was as bold as the color.

I sliced a few pieces off, not wanting the discovery to end.  Each time, a new painting inside, each time a fresh scent from my mother’s cedar chest. 

I couldn’t believe that this old piece of wood, left for dead for untold years, still behaved as if it were alive.  Hidden inside the peeling bark, covered with the fragments of other dead things, was this color and texture and smell.

That night I got ready for bed, feeling weary from the new efforts.  I was between books, so I reached for something on my shelf, dipped into Sweet Thursday as I fell asleep.  It is a tattered paperback, bought used, old before I got it.  John Steinbeck published it seventy years ago.  Most of the world has not seen the inside of it.

The slim book is creased and water stained, the cover faded, the spine flawed from being left folded open on the arms of chairs or tabletops to save where I left off.  If you saw it in a pile of books you would pass it over hoping for better.

Drawn in its pages is the story of love, friendship, redemption. Each character learns that all of these things are waiting inside them, sometimes hidden and discovered, sometimes known and ignored. It felt like I was seeing the inside of the cedar tree again, the rings and shades of color nested inside the worn cover.

I read with different eyes, saw again and again how the author sliced into the lives of the people of Cannery Row and showed them what beauty and genius was there.  And when they knew it, they were changed and changed each other.  Every page, and every word hidden there, showed a new thing to me, even the paragraphs I could have said from memory.

A day or so later I was listening to a dozen people tell true stories from their lives, experiences I could never have guessed about them if I’d passed them on the street.  Each telling reminded me of the core of that aromatic tree.  All of these people, no matter what they appear, are full of life and color and potential, all of which surprised me, inspired me to look for more.

If any of this seems dramatic, and you feel your eyes rolling a bit, or a smirk beginning, I invite you to the edge of my woods. I will show you what I was shown.

On the kitchen table are medallions from the cedar tree.  Just now I admired the chianti-stain color, put my nose to the perfume, and was in awe.  This living thing, long left as irrelevant to us all, serves up a brilliant reminder to not judge a tree by its bark.

Hope this finds you looking closer,

David

Copyright © 2025 David Smith