All that remains are the stumps. Six large trees were on the northeast side of my apartment, their pine leaves evergreen throughout the year. Rooted in the yard of a social housing complex, each tree was tall enough to reach the third story windows. The trees were probably planted when the apartments were built and so were about 60 years old.
The high-pitched whine of the machines had tortured my ears. It would not stop and so I looked out the bedroom window to see what was causing it. Three trucks. Two mini-bulldozers. Six men with chainsaws.
I knew that the housing complex would be demolished and clearing the vegetation is the first step. It is part of the regeneration of my Regent Park neighbourhood. Over a century ago, this Toronto area was filled with cheap rents for broken row-houses stuffed with poor Irish immigrants fleeing disease and starvation from the potato famine. It was home for them; a slum to everyone else.
The slum was erased. The row-houses replaced by mid-rise, red-bricked apartment blocks set in a garden-style landscape. The entrances turned their backs on the street, looking inwards on to the garden. And that was their undoing.
The streets were dead. Due to poor city planning there were no shops, cafés, or a community centre. Not even a supermarket. There was no street life to entice visitors. People only came to the area if they lived here. The new apartments had turned into the latest version of the previous slum. The Irish immigrants fled their poverty when they became White and joined the mainstream. The poor new immigrants were Black and brown. Racism put the mainstream beyond their reach.
Tree trunks were stacked on the ground. Branches were sawed off and heaped on the right. Each branch was fed to the ravenous chipper. It took three hours to reduce six enormous trees to a pile of wood chips.
Still, this one hurt. The trees were my neighbours. In the summers I spent countless hours staring at them from my lounge on the balcony. I watched them because they were a green balm among the new glass and concrete towers. I watched them too for the birds that called the trees home. Crows. Cardinals. Blue Jays. Where will they go now that their roost are gone?
The whine started up again the next day, but this time it was on the northwest side of the apartment. I ignored it as I headed straight to the shower to remove the sweat from my Pilates class. The whine of the machines would not stop. I looked out of the living room window. One truck. Two men. Their chainsaw had already chopped off the branches of the magnificent pine tree that ruled the corner of the housing complex.
The rain came. It has been a too-dry autumn, triggering worries about the climate crisis. The rain was good but now of no use to chopped down trees. In my mind it was celestial tears.
The trees were huge, so solid. They looked like they would last forever. Nothing lives forever, I know. From trees to wood chips was fast. Just like the passing of a life.
© Jacqueline L. Scott. You can support the blog here.
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