When the 19th-century writer Henri Stendhal moved to Paris, his first friends were a pair of lime trees. There are now fewer trees to befriend on Queen Anne Hill. At Betty Bowen Viewpoint, in the case of the view vs. the trees, the view has won.
A few weeks ago I walked to the viewpoint. Chestnut trees, leaves turning in late September, framed an eternity of blues. An elderly lady sat on a bench, the peaceful blues reflected on her smiling face. We talked. She lives in Lower Queen Anne and was surprised to learn the trees had only recently been cut down.
Diplomatically, she said, "It's hard to choose between the trees and the view. But now that we've got the view, we might as well enjoy it."
That dazzling view is surely the park's original purpose. Yet I want to put in another word for trees. Especially since more may be at risk from the project, proposed by Seattle Parks and Recreation, to install new sidewalks on Queen Anne Boulevard, along West McGraw Place and Bigelow.
"Once a tree's gone, it's gone," Chris Marks summed up the tragedy of a tree irresponsibly cut down. Marks, who once worked for the Department of Design, Construction & Land Use (now Department of Planning and Development), still remembers the rare Japanese Shiro plum in Ballard, which the city asked designers not to cut. They did anyway.
There are many reasons to protect trees, Marks told me in 2003, shortly before he retired after laboring for many years over the issue of tree preservation.
Foremost for rainy Seattle, trees help prevent flooding. "As Seattle grows and trees are cut, flooding worsens," Marks said, "because the trees absorb the groundwater." Trees take time to grow, so planting new trees is not the solution. Nor are lawns, since grass does not drink but soaks water like a sponge.
As homeowners below Bowen Viewpoint know, trees hold the soil and prevent landslides. They also provide homes for wildlife, shade creeks and protect fish, and enhance air quality, Marks said.
Public meetings about trees can become intense as feelings run high. Marks calls it the "classic dilemma between individual rights and the common good." Americans value individual rights, but some choices can affect whole areas, as he saw when a housing project on Vashon cut forests, creating runoff and landslides for the neighbors.
Extreme viewpoints complicate choices. "There are those who believe trees are part of nature and God and it is a sin to cut one down," Marks said, and "those who resent government restricting choices for our own piece of land."
I suggest other, more subterranean, forces also converge around the simple tree. As Chief Sealth saw, for the 19th-century colonizers of the Northwest, "the earth is not his brother but his enemy."
An uneasy attitude toward the earth conflicts with a love of nature's beauty. Why?
Taking an hour now and then, preferably with a latte and a tree view, to wonder what shapes our mindset regarding nature might well help the environment. Because how can we rebalance the earth without first balancing ourselves and our way of life?
For my part, I remember the shock of hearing, in Sunday School and then in Bible study at my Episcopalian girls school, that Washington's red, delicious apples and the green pie apples on the tree in our backyard helped oust the human race from paradise. And it was just because Eve ate the apple (and she didn't even have the excuse of being manipulated by a TV commercial). Although I gave little thought to the story, a shadow fell over the apple tree.
Studying philosophy in college, I learned that, since the Age of Reason, reasonable people have believed the mind is split from matter. Discomfort with that led to readings in myth and world religions, and the discovery that the tree figures in myths all over the world. For some cultures, the tree is a positive symbol of wisdom. The Buddha sat under a Bodhi tree when he received enlightenment.
At the girls school, the story in Genesis seemed contradicted by some of the hymns we sang, hymns that praised the earth. When my family visited Assisi, we felt at home there because of the mountainous, silent beauty of the land. (It also rained a lot.) The Pacific Northwest land suggests the prayer by St. Francis, The Canticle of the Sun:
"Be praised, oh Lord, for our Sister, Mother Earth, who nourishes us and watches us while bringing forth abundant fruits with colored flowers and herbs."
Maybe that's why Northwesterners have been at the forefront of environmental protection, feeling responsible to that sense of praise. It's hard not to, with dawns and twilights like a communion service, twice a day, over Mount Rainer and Puget Sound.
The issue of tree preservation can reach into the heart of our beliefs about life on earth. And Queen Anne has a new issue, over which our ingrained ideas can collide and, hopefully, reach a conclusion harmonious to both residents and trees.
In his Sept. 13 piece on the sidewalks proposed for Queen Anne Boulevard, Russ Zabel quoted the project planner, David Goldberg: "'There could be a problem with trees in the path of the new sidewalks,' Goldberg concedes. 'We will do everything we can to avoid taking down trees.'"
What does doing "everything we can" mean? It's hard not to be a bit suspicious these days. According to Ballard resident Pat Moore, when developers wanted to put a gas station next to the Safeway on 15th, they agreed they would not cut down certain trees. In the dead of night, they did. "Oh my gosh, they're gone! It was a mistake," was pretty much the developer's reaction.
As Marks says, "Once a tree's gone, it's gone."
Marks also give some common-sense advice. "If I'd like people to think of anything," Marks said, "its' to value the trees that are there on the site. There's a lot you can do to protect trees and still have your development. It's harder. But in the long run I think you're going to have a more valuable property.
"Just picture a house on a lot that's completely barren but for a few little saplings, compared to a house sitting among beautiful trees that are mature right now. I guarantee that the house with the trees is more valuable."
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