Next to our carport is a fig tree that’s at least 50 years old. It’s about 30 feet tall and 40 feet wide, with a canopy that drapes over our driveway to the ground on the other side. Regular pruning has given us a living tunnel.
Now I understand why Adam and Eve scrambled to make clothes of fig leaves when they discovered they were naked — fig leaves are big. Dinner-plate-size big. Big enough you can hear them hit the ground.
It’s winter now, even in Southern California, and today the fig tree dropped the last of its leaves. I’ve heard that leaf impact sound a lot.
For the past three weeks, part of each morning was spent raking leaves. It became my morning meditation: raking fig leaves into enormous piles and raking patterns into the gravel drive left behind. Thinking only of the leaves and of the patterns. Looking up through the lacework of newly bare branches at the impossible blue of the dessert sky.
Soon enough, my nine-year-old daughter will excitedly point out the new shoots appearing and tell me spring is coming. Then, seemingly overnight the entire glorious canopy will be full, shading the ground so completely even weeds won’t grow. Then we’ll have to find a use for bushels of figs.
But tomorrow I will rake leaves. Then I’ll rub linseed oil into the rake’s handle and put it away for another season.
Roger's View 