PINE NUTS: Huckleberry’s Tree and Me
There’s a tree outside my bedroom window that speaks to me. Yes, speaks with a perfectly symmetrical spray of pine needles that welcomes me when I rise in the morning and bids me adieu when I retire at night. It’s the very same constellation that welcomed me when I moved into Twain Haven 22 years ago. This flawless bouquet, in the shape of a microphone, speaks to me through Huckleberry, my pet jay, every day when Huck arrives for a Beer Nut at Happy Hour…
“Thanks for the Beer Nut, Pal, to celebrate this particularly pleasant pinecone day.”
Then this morning the unimaginable happened. I was gazing out the window at my noble pine needle comrade, ruminating about how lucky I am to have Huckleberry and our pine tree to associate, when Huckleberry suddenly burst through the middle of that spray of needles, parting it like a cape with his wings, and stood there staring at me as if to say, “Ta-Da! You’re right! This tree does speak to us both!”
My breath forsook me, and I came near falling onto the floor in astonishment. Huckleberry employs many different tricks to get my attention, from landing on the flagstaff and waving Old Glory, to banging on the window with his beak, but his bursting forth in the middle of our pine needle touchstone at the very moment I was focused on it, well, “out of this world” does not describe my wonder. It stopped my heart, and even now, half-an-hour later, I’m reflecting feverishly upon this affirmation…
I’ve had some surreal incidents in my life, but never one so palpable and profound as the flamboyant appearance of Huck in the exact time and place that I was contemplating his role as liaison between the tree and me. It gives me chicken skin to contemplate it…
Huck has been coming for Happy Hour every afternoon since 2017. Lately he has taken to raiding the rain gutter when I’m not at home, and flinging pine needles onto the deck as if to say, “Hey, I was here, where were you?!” It’s his calling card, and it makes me smile.
There is something clairvoyant going on between that tree, Huck and me. I don’t know exactly what it might be, but there’s a definitive telepathic link joining the three of us. It’s a bond that the tree and Huckleberry know more about than I do. Whatever it might be, I wish I could bottle it up and give it away to parties who are hell-bent on using violence to settle their differences.
The calming and charming effect of knowing that we three, Huckleberry, our tree and me, are aware of our supernatural alliance is a comfort me, and I don’t need to know how or why to appreciate the splendor of it. It’s the dangdest thing I ever struck, really, and I remain eternally grateful for the illustrious mystery of it all…
