A friend told me about Sugar Pines, his favorite kind of pine tree. The pine cones hang off the very tips of the draping branches, like ornaments covered in glistening sap. It sounded like a beautiful tree. He asked me if I’d seen sugar pines before and I said I didn’t think so.
We drove up north, through 108 degree F heat, passed a fire by the side of the road, stopped to get some vegan ice cream and kept driving.
At the higher elevation where we camped, the temperature was down to about 85 degrees. I got out of the van, tired of being contained within that space for hours, and saw a long wooden bench under the shade of pine trees.
I lay down on the wooden slats and took a few deep breaths. I gazed up at the deep blue sky and saw pine cones dangling down from the tips of branches, covered in glistening sap, swaying and shining in the sun and wind.
It must be a sugar pine. I found it!!
The power of a great description is that it’s unmistakable. Although I needed to double check, I knew half a second after looking up into that tree that it must be a sugar pine, because of my friend’s beautiful description of what it must look like.
Maybe I’ve seen sugar pines many times before. I’ve certainly been in that geographical area before.
But without that specific knowledge of what to look for, I might have missed it entirely.
Something people often don’t see about me without a description, is that I’m not a woman. I’m going to say that again—just a description, but somehow perverted into a political statement—I’m not a woman.
