A Field Guide to Trees of My Childhood

I miss the trees in California.

New York is beautiful in the summer. This evening I walked through Central Park, and it is unbelievably green, but it's just not the same. After living in the city for two years, and spending the last eight months on the east coast, I miss the rustling of the hot dry wind in the leaves of my hometown.

When I was a kid, probably four or five, I would go to the elementary school playground with my dad and my brothers and sister, and what I remember most about that playground is not a slide or a merry-go-round, but a giant oak tree I would sit in and collect acorns. There never seemed to be an end to them, and I stuffed them into the pockets of my overalls, or my corduroys, or whatever my parents dressed me in.

When I think of the trees in California, I don't think of palm trees. Although there are plenty of them in my hometown, someone told me a few years ago that they actually aren't indigenous to the area. Which makes sense to me. The trees I miss are the magnolias with their giant white blossoms that appear up and down entire avenues, sprawling from one city into the next.

I miss the jacarandas at my grandparents' house that drop sticky purple flowers and hard circular seed pods all over the street.

And I miss the wispy pepper trees with their tiny seeds encased in crispy red berries that crumble between your fingers and fill the air with a spicy aroma.