The neighbors never trimming their robust palm tree in the house in South LA forced me to become a palm frond farmer, or a rudimentary gardener. I tried to be in spiritual good will within my mind by taking care of the large dry palm fronds falling from the untended tree on their property onto my roof. Gradually with each wack of a leafy behemoth landing, I loathed their neighborly ineptitude. My love for the balmy dry wind rustling through the front trees on a Sunday morning was soiled by the expectation I would come out of the house the next morning and find a monstrous pile of palm fronds gathered either on the side of my house or dangling between my roof and the fence. They were like silent steadfast intruders you couldn’t arrest because they came back.
Never having spent much time with a palm frond up close, I was in awe at the length and weight of the palm frond. I had seen palm fronds on car windshields, which were cracked from the velocity of their weight. Now I understood that power. Untended, the fronds fell in a violent, messy and unruly way. Los Angeles urban gardening is not like planting tulips like my parents did in New England. Perennials are for pussies. I had to wear workman’s leather gloves and cowboy boots to drag the 16 foot palm fronds from the side to the back. At first I had no idea how I would get them into the green garden bin, only to discover I actually have the strength to snap the bases in half by creating tension with my leg and arm strength. I feel victorious and make a note to self that my palm frond organization could be applied to many quadrants of life. Don’t panic. Use natural tension. Make a stack. Take a break. Panic a little but not a lot, and then start the successful process all over again.
I learned in my amateur palm frond farming that there are two kinds of fronds. The long kind with the base you could actually whittle into some kind of chair or seat or canoe and then the short kind with this dry spindly broom like top which in no way can be broken down by human hands and I don’t own an axe. I contemplated buying an axe as I piled these less compliant fronds up next to the garage and thought maybe I will load them all into my VW Tiguan and drive them to Les Jardins which is a very odd name for a dumping ground for yard scraps by people’s gardeners; none of which I am going to guess are even remotely French. I only know that means the gardens from 8th grade honors French, by the way. I end up being stronger than I think, and find a breaking point for the fronds that have the witch brooms tops and am very relieved I don’t have to go to Les Jardins.
As I did this work, I settled into a mindfulness mantra around two thoughts: one. I don’t need a man to farm palm fronds; and two, I could be an out of touch crazy woman living some home owning dream that is one palm frond falling season away from foreclosure. The truth is everyone living around me has at least four people living in their abode, and some more like eight but here I am, queen of sheba, living by myself on 4,500 square feet of land with two kids here only 50 percent of the time. As I dealt with the endless palm frond problem, my mind would do a number on me worrying about whether I am one of the most incredible manifesters of modern history and I should take it on tour, or I am just flat out living in a doom-impending fantasy land.
As the sun beat down on my face, I thought about how actress Kate Walsh had to take five years off acting (my mainstay in Covid was Grey’s Anatomy starting with Season One) to battle Melanoma. How this had any relevance to me was, I have not yet secured a disability policy, so if I got Melanoma I would definitely lose the house being a solo business owner. I also had no membership to Costco so I couldn’t buy one of those enviable flying sunshade triangles. But the dry crack of each palm frond breaking by the will of my hands was like a symphony and returned me to the present moment. Shit was getting done and I needed to know there was progress in my life. It brought me great comfort. What I didn’t see was the running cyclical dialogue with these fronds. They were seemingly never ending. If I knew a pile was accumulating on the side of the house, awful thoughts would prevent sleep like rats (we had none but we could) were eyeballing the unruly palm frond stack to make a nest and would bite me or my children or the cat. Or the accumulation would get so out of control, I would have to give up the good fight. The truth was, this tree was so neglected, the timing for it to shed dead branches was symbolic to my shedding. Together in the dusk and in the dawn, we shed together, and I hauled and snapped, unclear of the lesson at hand.
What annoyed me most despite this commiseration with nature and a good arm work out is the palm fronds that partly fell on my neighbor’s side. They collected in such a way that they built up between their rickety fence and their shed, causing the fence to lean onto my property. So wanting to be a good neighbor, to dislodge any fronds that straddled my roof before they fell in their gap, I got on a step stool designed for changing a lightbulb not tree trimming, and swung a shovel, far better designed to dig and not dislodge fallen palm fronds. As I precariously stood on the stool in cowboy boots, dropping palm fronds all around me, I realized how shamefully avoidant I was of conflict. I didn’t want to go over and ask them to remove the fronds or fix the fence. Prior to sobriety, I used to say whatever I wanted to anyone, and quite brashly (and often quite drunkenly) but now I couldn’t seem to say anything without running it through the filter of kindness and consideration which in the end found me perplexed on how to negotiate healthy boundaries.
Instead of speaking up, I spend the morning breaking down palm fronds which led to finally clearing all the dead leaves and debris behind the house and these berry bushes that have run amouck. I believe even if I don’t have the answer of what to do about the fronds besides just let them fall and keep breaking them down, the more time I spend in my back area of my home, in action and solitude with the land, I get great design ideas. Unfortunately, they are all about twenty thousand dollar design ideas but hey, a girl can dream. I mean, who says I can’t have an auto-mister on the patio for hot days? I need to trust the path to joy in my house and on the land. This is good land and can foster joy and happiness, not despair. I am quite in the zone back there cleaning up because it also is a respite from snacking endlessly in the kitchen or worrying my kids brains are mush from too much screen time in Covid, or that I wasn’t making enough money because hustlers work on Sunday and I am instead grappling palm fronds and innocuous berry bushes.
My dear friend Jenny, a vision in sparking yoga ensembles, gave me a completely new perspective when she came over to see the house for the first time. I was giving her a tour of the house, and as we came around the back I paused at the alleyway where the alleged palm fronds fall.
“This is where the palm fronds gather and the fence sags,” I said, not attempting to mask any disdain.
“What would happen if you just let the palm fronds collect there,” she said.
I was at a loss for words, which is rare.
“Well, they would gather on the roof.”
“Well do your research,” she said. “But if they don’t cause your roof to cave in…” and she made a motion of drawing a line… “I would say your house ends right here. Just don’t go to that side of the house. Who needs to see it anyway? And you make the back all nice that you do have control over.”
I couldn’t believe how much time she just freed up. I suddenly saw that it was I battling the palm fronds and making life harder for myself, and busying myself with making the world safe and right when I could be writing or napping or singing… something that was a forward moving spiral versus cutting up palm fronds only to have six more gather in the next windy day. Was going out there and being all macho and resilient keeping me from my feminine self? Was I perpetuating some kind of survival mantra with the weight of nature’s thrust on my life? I felt free to focus in other areas of my life suddenly which also comes with that horrible plunging into nothingness feeling when there isn’t something evident to fill the hole.
While I appreciated Jenny’s “what you don’t see you don’t have to deal with” attitude, complete avoidance of the issue was not the lesson in store for me. As I looked away completely from the palm fronds, in a few weeks, the side of the house became the inner crust of hell. Complete with wasps swarming around the area as the detris of denial set in. Palm fronds had landed across other palm fronds some on the roof and crossing over to the other roof, making an instable cover that I could no longer go out and hack at with my shovel as they would fall on my head. The root of a palm is thick and heavy and it could easily knock you out or easily cause some damage. To add insult to injury, the damn Yucca trees we cut down were starting to grow back. Now I had to bring in the work force, the gardeners, and it cost me $100. I complained to my neighbor Maria on the other side. I was still feeling like a chicken shit with conflict and hoped since she had lived on this block since she was 18, she what I should do. She looked down the alley at the mass of criss crossing palm fronds and didn’t miss a beat.
“You don’t deserve to be taking that on. They should be cutting down their tree.”
I felt like the problem was just not mine anymore.
“I will talk to them with you,” she said.
I felt like I had found a palm frond savior.
“I’ll be home at 5 and we will go over…” But then she paused. “You know she has cancer you know. The husband is trying to hold it together financially.”
I wanted to say I knew that just from the energy I got from the house, but since she was still saying they should pay their part, I agreed to talk to them with her. 5 PM came and she never showed, and now I was having to pace in front of their house like a scaredy cat and deal with it myself. I saw the door was open but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. What was I so scared of? I was terrified of conflict or collaboration or perhaps knowing I would not get what I wanted. I had to grapple with how hard and painful it is for me to ask for what I want. With money, with men, with God. I guess this was really an act of giving the problem to the community and God by not staying alone in the thoughts and resentments, but also not being the palm frond warrior.
I knocked on the door, and the lady came out… she was 49, younger than me, and let me know she had been in Mexico because she has cancer of the liver and the medical treatments are better over there. She didn’t have health insurance. We looked at the tree and I told her the gardener would cut it for $1200 and I could split it, and she said to give her time to come up with the money. Truth is, I didn’t want her money. I wanted to have enough money to cut down the tree myself. Or what about find a charitable city organization that cuts down trees for you free of charge? Does that exist? Had I properly prayed to God about solutions for this tree?
Then a miraculous event occurred. When I opened up the space of acceptance that the palm fronds were not a battle fraught in resentment and isolation, but rather a community issue that was in limbo, the lady came to my fence from next door. I was working at my desk, peering out my window as I often do, and I saw her appear at my gate. She has never once appeared there so I hurried out. I don’t think I even had an agenda on my mind. I had let go of the results of the palm fronds.
“My husband clean the tree,” was all she stated in broken English.
“Uh okay,” was all I could say back. I had no idea the scope of that statement or what it would entail, but I do know that within that afternoon, he was back there hacking at the old palm fronds on a ladder with a big tool, and they came thumping onto my roof, and cascading onto the ground. When the day was done, the alley way was jammed with fronds and the fence had been taken down in one large place, leaving no barrier between my house and theres. I was worried. I suddenly felt like the walls of Jericho had come down. This false illusion that I was “protected” from my neighbors and my own private Idaho because of a rickety fence was abolished. I went to bed that night questioning why I didn’t feel safe with my property line so openly merged with theirs. Didn’t I fancy myself one with the community?
The next day I sheepishly went over to talk to the husband when I saw him now working on their front yard. I was concerned the wreckage would be mine to clear, but also not complaining. I was willing to pitch in however I could. I offered help.
“No, I am fine,” he said. “I clean up and the city come take it all away. I call already.”
He left the alley way raked of all debris and promised one day he would do another pass on the fronds, but so far, no more has fallen. He put the rickety fence back in pieces, but I no longer had the illusion we were separate. No matter how different we are, on this land, we are one In the same and I had found people who had integrity and stuck to their word. In this day and age, that is rare.
I brought them flowers and a card. It was the least I could do. I felt so moved and blessed. The day before the issue was solved, I had given the palm fronds to God. I had heard that you make a list of what you need to accomplish that day, and if there is too much on the list, give what you can’t or don’t have time to handle. Usually conditions or situations that were out of my control anyway. Sometimes I even have to give falling in love because it feels so vast and new and real that I try and make some kind of sense of it, but when you do that then you block all the moments that are so beautiful that make no sense and leave you swooning.
The palm fronds taught me about patience, about how I need to walk through the burden first, and then how I have to go into terror to share, to then be heard and let go of the expectation. I had vast learning from that one mighty tree and I attribute its teachings to a primal freedom and reverence my younger daughter and I shared. Out in the yard in our pandemic boredom, during the heigh of their amassing, I proclaimed to her that we should honor the fronds in some kind of ceremonial march. I held one of the heavy fronds over my head.
“Will you join me?” I shouted.
“Yes!” she replied, with a youthful fury in her eyes, hoisting the weight of a palm frond up with her little arms towards the sky.
In great tribal reverie, we marched around the perimeter of the house – down the driveway, across the front lawn, up the back side and through to the garage – honoring the palm frond gods. Our simulation of a prayer song was the culmination of all the shows we had watched on tribal singing (okay, mostly Disney movies) and our imaginations from stories in books. Mainly the lyrics were “Oh Palm Fronds” which was a bit Biblical in nature but what mattered was our passionate commitment and intent to honor this gangly mangled form of nature. We hoped with all our hearts that the palm frond Gods would be heard, and all my past curses and complaints would be shifted to a communion with God’s creation (as annoying as it was in this instance to my landscaping.) In my sweat-soaked surrender that day, I put in motion for my child a teaching lesson. Be humble to what you live among in nature, Trust in what you see, ask and hear through nature. What can be construed as a hinderance can also act as an freedom if you are open.
Or to really water it down, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.