The Lone Cypress

Last week we drove once again on the 17-Mile Drive in Monterey, California.  Along the way is the Lone Cypress, a Monterey cypress tree, which only grows naturally in Pebble Beach and Point Lobos, California.   The tree stands on a granite hillside overlooking the Pacific and is believed to be about 250 years old.  It has been scarred by fire, wind, and storm and for the last 65 years has been held in place with cables.  Last year the tree was damaged in a  wind storm, losing its leftmost branch.  The tree is one of the most photographed trees in North America.  I have photos of the tree from the past, but took yet another last week to record its new brokenness.

The worldwide coronavirus pandemic and the precautions being taken here and abroad is overwhelming for all of us.  We have never experienced anything like this  before.  When we add to this crisis all the personal, familial, and community  issues that we face in normal times and continue to face now, the situation seems almost unbearable.  

The elderly in nursing homes and hospitals are isolated from their children and friends.  Neighbors are isolated from neighbors.  We all know that a phone call isn’t the same as holding a hand or giving a hug.  Social distancing (making us a kind of lone cypress) is creating havoc in families, homes and businesses.  At the same time, the normal heart attacks, strokes, transplants, cancers, and other forms of physical suffering are happening as usual—along with all the other daily vicissitudes of just being alive.  Life is tumbling in on us as it has never tumbled in on us before—only this time, it isn’t just “us”—its tumbling in on everyone!  

No one is a lone cypress anymore, even though we are isolated one from another.  We are a forest—every branch touches another, and thus touches us all (the very reason for social distancing).  I am reminded of the words of John Donne:  “No man is an island” which expresses the truth that human beings do badly when isolated from others and need to be part of a community in order to survive.  None of us are a Lone Cypress,  or a lone continent (entire unto ourselves).  Like that cypress tree in Monterey, we need cables (one another—a global community) to hold us together, to keep us going on in the face of the present calamity.  Being a “lone cypress” isn’t an option anymore.