Tag: familiar

The Familiar

The air was cold, and the wind was whipping. I shivered a bit as I stared at a row of pine trees.

I must have been 4 years old, maybe 5. And I was tagging along with my godmother and godfather as they shopped for a Christmas tree.

My godparents didn’t have kids of their own yet, so they were extra keen on involving me in the process.

Which tree do you think is best for us to bring home? my godmother asked.

My reply was filled with fear and panic.

I…I don’t know. They just look like trees. And I’m cold.

My godfather must have been cold as well. Or else he’d seen enough.

He and my godmother quickly conferred, before summoning over the attendant.

They pointed to their top choice. And the attendant prepared it for the long car journey to come.

We had taken two vehicles to this Christmas Tree Farm out in rural Connecticut.

My parents, my sister, and I were in one. My godparents and the tree in the other.

And on the long drive back to the big city, I peppered my parents with questions.

We didn’t have a Christmas tree at home, you see. All I knew was that we’d go to my godparents’ house late in December, and there would be an elaborately decorated tree in the living room. Then, the next time we visited, the tree would be gone.

I was too young to connect the dots. After all, I had no frame of reference.

So, my father spelled it out for me. He explained that Christmas trees were generally grown out in the country – preferably somewhere dry and hilly.

As fall set in, many got cut down and shipped to the big city. That way, the trees would be easier for urbanites to buy, set up, and decorate.

But not all trees got an early axe. Sometimes, as the air got chilly, people would come straight to the farm to select their tree and haul it back home. The experience was more authentic that way. And the tree would likely stay fresh throughout the holiday season.

Wait, so there are people who just grow Christmas trees? I asked.

Yes, my father replied. They prepare all year for one day. But that day is so big that they do quite well for themselves.

This was a lot for me to take in. So, I changed the subject. And never thought of it again.

Until now.

Where does America grow its Christmas trees?

It’s not really a question that’s top of mind. Even though hundreds of millions of people from coast to coast add a tree to their home each December, the where from hardly seems relevant to many.

But not to me. I looked it up.

It seems that thousands of small farms like that one in Connecticut still do grow Christmas trees these days. But the bulk of America’s holiday décor comes from two locations – the forests of Oregon and the mountains of North Carolina.

In a normal year, each region produces about 2 million Christmas trees.

But this is not a normal year.

I’m writing this column roughly three months after a hurricane trudged through the Smoky Mountains. The unprecedented weather event flooded Western North Carolina, leading to widespread death and destruction.

And that hurricane also disrupted the Christmas tree supply chain.

Fortunately, the short-term impacts of this particular development haven’t been too severe. There haven’t been widespread reports of Christmas trees being sold out or broadly unavailable. Oregon and the other growing locations have picked up the slack.

But this is only one year. It’s hard to forecast what the long-term implications of this devastating storm.

Will the Christmas tree farmers of Western North Carolina be able to rebuild and regrow? Will children in the Southeast still trek to the mountains with their parents and help pick out the perfect tree? Will another hurricane roll in and wipe the slate clean again?

It’s all up in the air.

The Christmas tree is not the end-all-be-all of the holiday season. The gifts under the tree and the people around it matter more.

Still, it’s far from insignificant.

In fact, I’d argue that the Christmas tree is one of the three most prominent symbols of the season, along with Santa hats and multicolored lights.

The tree is universally familiar. And that familiarity brings us a sense of inner peace.

That’s why so many people go through the motions of hauling a tree into their living rooms each winter. That’s why they decorate those trees with lights and ornaments. And that’s why public trees – such as the gigantic one in New York’s Rockefeller Center – become tourist attractions as the season’s chill sets in.

There are many staples we’ve let go of over the years. We no longer send faxes or travel by horse and buggy.

But the Christmas tree tradition? I can’t envision a shift away from that. Not now, not ever.

It needs to work. But how far will we go to ensure it does?

There was a time once when a large swath of us lived off the land.

Farming, hunting, ranching, coal mining — those were a means of sustenance. Both in terms of goods sold and consumed.

A bad year meant more than a light piggy bank back then. It meant going hungry through the fall or shivering through the winter.

Christmas trees were a staple back then too. But rural settlers were far more likely to cut down the nearest fresh pine themselves. And as such, they understood what it took to bring the joy of the holiday through their front doors.

Society has shifted since those days. Most of us are city dwellers or suburbanites now. We’re more likely to buy our supplies from a store or an Internet browser. And we rarely give a second thought as to how those goods arrived on our doorstep.

Oftentimes, this approach is sensible. We already have plenty to concern ourselves with. The intricacies of supply chains needn’t be added to the list.

But in this case, at this moment, it might be wise to reconsider.

The profound joy that we experience this time of year – it doesn’t just emerge out of thin air. There are plenty of people working hard to provide it to us.

We owe it to them – and to ourselves – to take a closer look. To drive out to a tree farm to pick our prize. To support a farmer waylaid by Mother Nature. Or to otherwise honor the regions of our great nation that help make our holidays merry and bright.

The familiar matters this time of year. Let’s show how much it does.

Rebooting the Ecosystem

It was a warm summer night.

The windows were cracked, filling my bedroom with a warm breeze. Outside, cars drove by the house intermittently, while the glow of the moon illuminated the roadway.

I was keenly aware of all this because I couldn’t sleep a wink.

My insomnia was understandable. Hours earlier, I’d returned from a trip to the other side of the globe. My internal clock told me it was 1 PM, not 1 AM. This was no time for sleep.

But there was more than jet lag keeping me awake.

For I was 10 years old, and I had just traveled abroad for the first time. In particular, I’d spent three weeks in China with my family.

Vacationing in a place so radically different from the environs I’d known was jarring. By the end of the trip, the disparity was playing tricks on my mind.

I had begun to think that the existence I had before boarding that flight across the Pacific was an illusion. That the life I’d remembered in America wasn’t real.

But once I got off that return flight, everything was still there. The city lights. My grandparents. Our house. Our dog.

It was all a bit much for me to process. So, I went to my bedroom and cried. Then, I tried in vain to fall asleep.

I hadn’t thought much of this particular night until recently. But now, it’s top of mind.

For after a lost year where our world was upended by a microscopic virus, change is again in the air. Our path out of the pandemic is clearly illuminated. And a return to the familiar awaits on the other side.

No, things won’t ever really be the same. Many have lost loved ones. Businesses have gone under. And there’s plenty that we’ll still do virtually after the health emergency recedes.

But there is plenty from the “before times” that will be returning. In-person events. Family barbecues. Nights out with friends.

And as we wade back into these experiences, there’s a good chance we’ll end up overwhelmed. Just like I did the night I returned from China.

Why is re-entry so clunky? Why is it so hard to reembrace the familiar?

A lot has to do with the underlying system.

What we call the familiar is actually an elaborate social and physical ecosystem. It’s the sights, sounds, and smells around us. But it’s also the paths we traverse, the people we associate with, and the norms that we follow.

When things are going well, we take much of this for granted. There’s no need to fuss about it, or even to notice it.

But if this ecosystem is taken away from us, we suddenly realize how fragile our assumptions were. And we need to work to get our sense of stability back.

Take domestic travel as an example. For many, crisscrossing United States has long felt ubiquitous. It was easy to hop a flight from Phoenix to Pittsburgh or to road trip from Charlotte to Chicago without missing a beat. The airports looked similar, the highway signs were uniform and there were ample hotel and restaurant brands along the route that we were comfortable with.

Much of this familiarity can be tied to two pieces of legislation.

One — the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 — built a national highway network. The other — the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 — effectively allowed airlines to do the same in the skies.

Providing a uniform way to get from Point A to Point B changed the way we think about mobility. Assuming we had the money and the time, we could head anywhere. And we wouldn’t need to worry about poor road conditions, inadequate lodging, or having to stop at a zillion airports along the way.

For years, nothing truly threatened that sense of travel freedom. The 9/11 attacks required us to beef up airport security, and surging gas prices have at times made road trips untenable. But despite those hurdles, we had ample opportunities to continue our journey unimpeded.

It took the pandemic to shatter that stability.

Now, to be clear, the interstates never shut down during the health crisis. Neither did airports. But traveling became much more burdensome.

Several states enacted quarantine requirements for travelers. Restaurants and hotels reduced services to follow health guidelines. And stay-at-home orders strongly discouraged travel for a time.

With so little peace of mind, many of us stopped traveling. It was too risky and too burdensome. For the first time in my life, I didn’t leave my own state for a year. In fact, I only left town once during that time.

But now, with vaccinations ramping up, many are looking to hit the road again. Many others are hoping to take to the skies.

These aspiring travelers are looking for a release. They’re seeking an escape from the horrors of the recent trip around the sun. They’re requesting a return to what they once knew.

But such desires might prove elusive. At least for now.

For while the highways and airports look similar to how they once did, the communities they connect do not. Our nation is still on the path back to the familiar, and the map is dotted with communities facing that same uneasiness.

A change of scenery won’t change that fact or speed up the timeline. We need something more to get there.

As I lay awake in my bedroom that warm summer night, I tried to will myself back to normalcy.

It would take me a week to get there. A week of groggily reacclimating with the environs I’d previously known so well.

I think the same perseverance is needed now, as we seek to reclaim what was once familiar.

For ecosystems can’t re-emerge in an instant. They take time to reboot.

And the ecosystem powering our way of life is extra fragile. It’s built on trust and human connection — both of which have been under siege lately.

The responsibility to get this project off the ground falls on our shoulders.

It’s on us to be deliberate and empathetic, as we work our way out of this forced hibernation. It’s our responsibility to resist the delusions of a quick fix. And it’s our charge to roll up our sleeves and rebuild connections.

This work won’t be glamorous, and it won’t seem particularly fun. But it will make our ecosystem stronger, and it will make us more resilient.

With patience, faith, and determination, we can do more than reclaim what we once had. We can build something even better.

So, let’s get to it.