I remember swinging by my knees from a low branch of our copper beech—the view peculiar upside down; my mother’s next-door best friend moving because in their extra lot a hurricane had downed nearly all of the old, New England trees, leaving only a gaping absence; feeling moved by a weeping willow's grace over a small brook in a park where I took our daughters; finding peace driving by miles of stunted scrub oaks on the Mid-Cape Highway—all my life affected by trees.