On Friday, my friend Rose and I snowshoed the new singletrack trails at Bicentennial Park near my house. A foot of snow fell last week so we planned to pack the trails for winter bikers. A windstorm in early October felled trees all over the Hillside of Anchorage. Singletrack Advocates, the group that built these new trails, has cut out trees that completely blocked trails. Those overhanging and somewhat passable have just been marked with some reflectors (see the gray one on the left side of the photo?). The number of trees down is somewhat hard to comprehend.
I've tried to imagine what the forest must have sounded like that night, with 100 mph wind gusts and 40' - 50' spruce, birch, and cottonwoods cracking and crashing to the ground. In some places, like the one shown here, the entire root system (of 2 trees!) just lifted from the ground and went with the tree. Roots in Alaska stay within the top soil layer where the ground is thawed more of the year and where water is more readily available. Rose said that with some of the smaller trees, they were able to tilt the entire assemblage back into place.
Sometimes our lives or how we view the world gets turned on edge and we aren't sure how to set it upright again. That's happening to a friend of mine who I work with. The matter isn't life-or-death, but a matter of friendship. She thought that one of the guys she supervises was her friend and that they worked well together. He's leaving for another job and told her boss and the director that it's because working for my friend is difficult. Despite their request, and the assumption that there was a true friendship here, he refuses to approach my friend himself. She feels like she's been "kicked in the gut."
How can this situation be set right? I think it's easier to place small trees back in place. Despite the fact that we're all human, we tend to forget that other people are fragile, too. Feelings can be hurt and one of the worst is to feel betrayed by a friend. We don't need to coddle each other, but honesty with respect and sensitivity can deepen our friendships and make us, and our friends, better people. So please be honest and kind with yourself and your friends.
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