The Eden Keepers

Spring trees bloom, and my daydreams do too.

By Hannah Lui

Illustration by Etta Lund

I spent spring break in two of America’s coldest, grayest places: Boston, Massachusetts, and the lobby of the Northwest Corner Building. Stationed in the latter for the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s 101st Spring Convention and Centennial Celebration, I spent my days on the wooden ledge in the NoCo lobby, opening the same two doors to let in hordes of middle and high schoolers excited for their next lecture on disinformation or reporting on scandal. Between door-opening and unsuccessful attempts at writing essays, I took advantage of the floor-to-ceiling windows in front of me. I sunbathed, I people-watched, I listened to The Who. I stared out into the courtyard and watched one tall, lone tree start to blossom. The first morning, it was all sticks, stiff and standoffish in the cold. But by the end of the week, its rust-colored leaves had filled in nicely on all sides, symmetrical and sturdy. It looked like the kind of tree you would take home to meet your parents, now that it had warmed up to the idea of monogamy.

With spring break over, I returned to classes with a newfound awareness that each tree I passed lived and breathed, and they all seemed a little more human now. The gnarled spindle tree outside Hamilton was shy; its halo of leaves appeared to float in the air. The breathy haze hovered around the branches so faintly, it looked like a psychic had charged $10 to take a Polaroid of the tree’s aura (“Ah, green, of course … Prepare yourself for immense growth and transformation, my dear …”). I noticed the blindingly bright white blooms behind St. Paul’s Chapel, reminding me of a straight-backed and straight-A student. The cherry tree flowers on either side of Low Library were stubborn, furled, and when it rained, the weight of the droplets pleaded with them to open, but they simply would not be rushed.

The start of this year was an unusually frigid winter, and what has followed has been an unusually tentative spring. Months crept on, branches stayed barren, and outside was a lonely place to be. The first day it reached 70 degrees in New York, a friend and I went to Central Park to celebrate the warmth, alongside maybe every single other resident of Manhattan. No patch of grass unclaimed by a picnic blanket or a beach towel, we were all grasping onto the hope that spring wanted us just as much as we wanted it. Swaths of white and yellow tulips, my mother’s favorite flower, had been planted along the walkways, and in the sun they seemed to beckon anyone with a phone to document their small glory.

On our way back from the park, not because of the tulips, but maybe with them in the back of our minds, we stumbled upon the subject of our fathers’ proposals to our mothers. Both had occurred at restaurant dinner dates, and more potent than the surprise at the similarity between the scenarios was the fear that such proposals were headed our way. We each chastised our dads for picking such public spaces, so loud and crowded. From the comfortable decade-ish of distance between us and marriage, we could not imagine being observed in such a terrifying, desirous, isolating moment. My friend asked if I had a dream proposal. I did. I would be happy with anything so long as it was just me and my partner, I said—I gave a moment’s silence so we could reflect on the horror of a public proposal one more time—but deep down, I always imagine myself being proposed to under a willow tree. 

Then, because it felt too vulnerable to let that sit in the air, even in front of a friend, I rushed to joke that really, it could happen as I was getting out of bed on a Sunday morning, and I’d be just fine. But in my heart, it’s always the willow tree. I think of this small Eden created by a canopy of long, liquid branches, hidden away under skinny leaves—so many leaves, the weight pulls the ends of the tree down to touch the earth. I think of how we say we have so much love, we’re unable to carry it all. So much love, it spills over. 

We’re grateful for what we can get, here in the city. Somewhere in our minds, we know there are no trees for us to make special for the first time. They’ve all already presided over a wedding, observed a dying golden retriever on his last walk, skimmed Austen over the shoulder of a contemplative English major with wired earbuds. It’s not like back home, where the only person the mesquite in your backyard has ever known is you. Every tree here is a stranger.

And yet they feel so familiar. And we trust them to witness us at our loneliest. And every spring, we come back to them, the anchors for our tire swings, objects of our poems, witnesses to our lives. We might not have climbed a tree in a decade, but on a weekend trip to Boston, the whim will take hold anyway, and we’ll hoist ourselves up and watch over the park from twelve feet in the air.

Maybe we allow ourselves these moments of vulnerability because we know we aren’t the first person the trees have seen stand up and self-consciously try to brush the dirt from their pants. Or wipe a crumb from someone else’s mouth. Or deliver the same pickup line in front of three different girls, or twist their ankle, or journal by hand until they cry. In that way, the trees know us already. We are predictable creatures to beings that have spent centuries rooted in the earth, watching generations of artists express the same feelings in different words.

Last week, under the still-bare trees of College Walk, a mom sat with her toddler, playing with a plastic truck and watching the mid-morning stragglers inch towards Pupin with the unbothered acceptance that they weren’t going to make it to class on time. As I passed by, she sang, “Happy birthday to me … I’m a hundred and three!” Her son, unconvinced, smiled politely but did not laugh, and wiggled his truck toward her head.

On my weekly Wednesday walk to the Manhattan Ave/114th bus stop, I pass through Morningside Park. At the bottom of nearly twenty flights of stairs, if I look to my left, like I do every time, I’ll see my favorite tree in the whole neighborhood. It’s a willow tree, although no proposals are happening beneath it anytime soon, since it’s enclosed by a swamp-like lake, so green from the algae it looks dyed. From my view on the sidewalk, the trunk emerges directly from the water, like its roots are embedded deep under the surface.

The overflow of heavy leaves stretches toward the water with the fluidity of dancers’ arms. The willow’s reflection in the lake reaches back. Gravity begs them to kiss, but each time, they seem no closer to touching than the last. Maybe it’s the presence of an audience that makes them so shy.

When I finally start walking toward the bus stop again, I try to preserve the image of the lake and its drooping willow in my mind as sharply as I can, like I’m meditating. I hold it there on the 30-minute eastbound bus ride and through my shift at work. I hold it until I’m back in West Harlem, along the edge of Morningside Park again, three hours older than I was. And when I get off at my stop, I cross the street and spend just one more minute memorizing and admiring and breathing in air made sweeter by this tree.

Then I remember I have to walk all the way up those same twenty flights of stairs to get back to campus, and the magic wavers. But only for a second.