My Joshua Trees
I’m amazed by what I don’t know.
In 1987 when U2 released the phenomenal Joshua Tree album, I thought they’d trekked to the desert, looking for this particular tree, the last of its kind, the monumental metaphor.
One twisted tree.
I had no idea there was a Joshua Tree National Park filled with these heartbreaking, spikey trees persevering against the odds: bitter droughts, barren soil, blasting heat from an indifferent sun.
But they stand anyway, growing only fractions of inches some years.
I’ve carried that tree image for decades. Learning there are more trees doesn’t lessen my singular Joshua tree belief.
I noticed something recently.
Our house, built in 1859, has a garage addition with a base of craggy sandstone rocks. Brush against them, and they’ll scrape your skin. It’s not a place you’d linger in. The exact opposite exists on the other side of this rough wall. I’ve planted ferns and hostas reveling in the northside shade. One fern is almost three-amazing-feet tall.
But while I swept leaves from the dusty, cobwebby garage interior, I noticed a straggling fern had pushed under the sandstone to grow inside this lackluster space. It aimed upward toward the window’s light, wrapping around a rusted oil can to stretch higher.
I bent to look. Its tiny fronds would never become brilliant green leaves that sway in the breeze. They’d never know there was a breeze.
They were destined to work relentlessly to live.
Like a Joshua tree.
I remembered Cliff’s struggle in March to walk after experiencing a severe stroke. It was almost two weeks before he could stand, and when he first walked, four people worked in unison to help him travel six feet, his useless left hand velcroed to his walker. He slept the rest of the day, exhausted from the effort.
But he tried the next day. And the next.
After three months, he uses that walker by himself, struggling against his own complicated odds to move forward and upward.
Like a Joshua tree.
Even though I’ve published two picture books, my third one isn’t coming any easier, pushing against my sandstone mind but refusing to be beaten by odds.
And while I’ve learned about the reality of a tree, I remain haunted by this album’s sentence: And I still haven’t found what I’ve been looking for.
I’ve come close.
Yet something still eludes me. But I find reminders.
Like a Joshua tree.
Like an impossible fern.
It’s out there. Waiting.