Between a White Oak and a Loblolly

As I swing between my two hammocking trees, trees with whom I’ve become very familiar this year, I am thinking about the concept of place-blindness. When we discussed it in class I mostly focused my attention on the way that we can come to view our surroundings as green and wooded when they are in fact so full of impervious surfaces. Since we studied up on trees, however, I have been thinking about how ridiculous it is that I didn’t know the names of so many of the trees around me. How on earth have I gone through life recognizing and adoring trees but spending so little time learning their names? It’s not as though I’ve been blind to the trees themselves—I’ve always spent a lot of time looking at trees—but being able to identify them feels like such a simple, achievable step towards improving my relationship to my surroundings. That tree at my feet is a Loblolly Pine, and the tree behind me is a small White Oak. I’ve known the name of the Loblolly for most of this year, and, if pressed, I probably could have told you that the White Oak was a type of Oak, but still, I feel an unwarranted sense of accomplishment for knowing their specific names. Unwarranted, as it seems that a basic knowledge of the trees around us should be a given. Still, I feel excited by my own excitement and that of my fellow lodgers. Knowing the names of even the few trees that I currently know feels like such a simple and productive way of becoming rooted in my home and aware of lives so nearby. Being unconscious of the names of these trees is like going through life without knowing the names of neighbors. How is it that I jump at the opportunity to familiarize myself with new humans but have gone so long without acknowledging my arboreal neighbors?