Seeking a memory of cherry tree

Recollection seemed so vivid, but did it happen?

New York — Even before we stepped foot in Central Park the pull could be felt, an indiscriminate allure impossible to pinpoint. We were drawn inexorably northward and westward along the East Side of Manhattan, past the Lipstick Building on Third Avenue, past the overpriced delis and new bus shelters, past the recently restored Plaza Hotel and horse-drawn carriages offering visitors a chance to see the vertical borough's best saving grace — this vast, varied green space — slowly, from a perch above the tall wagon wheels.

Once safe inside, away from the motorized tumult and human-powered bustle of the street, my friend and I thought we would simply meander until we found an adequate lawn upon which to throw a Frisbee. We assumed we were meandering. We were not.

In 1992, my fifth year in the city, I discovered a treasure in Central Park. I found it between the Bethesda Fountain and the Loeb Boathouse, in a relatively populated part of the park where street performers stake a claim to one corner or another of the plaza, couples skim the surface of the little lake in pedal boats and others stand in line nearby waiting for a bathroom. But there, among the park's more active pedestrians, upon a grassy embankment few take the time to scrutinize, stood a cherry tree with something to say.

I realize I am anthropomorphizing; I understand that trees — even cherry trees with their sudden curves, brief flowering and hidden toughness — merely exist, grow, bear fruit, endure disease, crack and die. But it was difficult to look at this tree, my discovery, and fail to infer some significance. As with all things, the tree had been affected by its environment: It bore the signs of use. Moreover, it stood in this place, a nature preserve every inch of which had deliberately been made by human hands, a pliant rectangular park in the middle of a durable cityscape, at once a verdant antidote and a complement to the streets outside.

The cherry tree stood matter-of-factly: "Here I am." Probably planted there a half-century ago, it was a mature specimen with thick limbs and a full if somewhat haphazard canopy of elliptical leaves. One limb, the first to have emerged from the knobby trunk, was embraceable. It arched thickly about 5 feet from the ground. A substantial portion of the thin bark near the trunk had been worn to the inside hardwood. An occasional climber had straddled the tree there, and over the years the spot had become increasingly smoother. A few people had etched their names into the surface. The limb at this spot was a source of illumination. Its inside glowed red, casting off a humble light as if in answer to the bombardments of a bright city. "You may do as you please," the tree seemed to announce to no one in particular, "for I am content to glow red and have my bare skin patted by distracted passers-by and the occasional seeker."

It seemed to invite a caress. I was drawn irresistibly to the tree and, like others before me, I hoisted myself up. I sat in this nook straddling the large limb as a baby straddles his father's thigh seeking an adventurous bounce and a higher view. And like a baby, I stretched forward to embrace the entire circumference of wood, unconcerned about who might take notice. I was hugging a tree in the middle of New York City. Upon this red limb, so near its glow, I was safe from the accidents and confrontations of cosmopolitan life, oblivious to bank accounts and traffic jams and the latest fashionable hangout.

I was, it seemed, very close to home.

So on this recent excursion, 16 years later, when my friend and I found ourselves sitting on a bench by the bandshell, just steps from Bethesda Fountain, trying to figure out what a videographer on Rollerblades hoped to achieve by filming a large, docile pack of dogs while onlookers gathered to gaze, it should have come as no surprise that we decided to proceed northward. Crossing the street and descending the wide stairs of the terrace, I remembered the tree.

But my friend remembered differently. Shortly after discovering the tree, I had introduced him and one or two others to it. It had been a beautiful tree, its attributes meant to be shared. If others had been granted the opportunity to admire it, the honors bestowed would have been well-deserved. My friend now expressed doubt, unhindered by my confidence and enthusiasm. He did not remember visiting the old cherry tree here. He thought it was somewhere else. Indeed, along this bluff beside the fountain plaza, the tree I pictured in my mind could not be found. Yet I remembered it vividly, every aspect of it, every detail of its stolid urban triumph. Could I be mistaken? Is my memory reliable? This is a big park. Could the tree be rooted in another place, on a different bluff, by another fountain? No, I was sure it was here. Implausible though it sounds, could it have been moved? Was it destroyed?

My friend and I went searching. He was unwilling to relinquish the idea that the tree still existed somewhere among the forests of Central Park. I was unwilling to abandon my memory. And so I went along, hoping he was right, certain he was wrong, longing to reach into the past for just a moment and feel the smooth red surface with the palm of my hand.

"The memories which lie within us are not carved in stone; not only do they tend to become erased as the years go by, but often they change, or even grow, by incorporating extraneous features," writes Primo Levi in his essay "The Memory of Offense." "Judges know this very well: almost never do two eyewitnesses of the same event describe it in the same way and with the same words, even if the event is recent and if neither of them has a personal interest in distorting it." Recollections, Levi writes, are capable of killing. Severe physical or psychological trauma can never be shaken from one's memory and sometimes cannot be survived either.

But memories also can appease or reassure. They can be called upon in an attempt to reassert one's identity or worldview, or they can be summoned for comparison purposes. An object is remembered in a certain way, but what does one think about it, or its associations, now?

Perhaps the cherry tree is not a distorted memory at all. Bertrand Russell writes in his book "Problems of Philosophy" that memory is sometimes manufactured by the mind through trickery. "(T)here are cases of very firm belief in a memory which is wholly false," Russell writes. "It is probable that, in these cases, what is really remembered, in the sense of being immediately before the mind, is something other than what is falsely believed in, though something generally associated with it. George IV is said to have at last believed that he was at the Battle of Waterloo, because he had so often said that he was. In this case, what was immediately remembered was his repeated assertion; the belief in what he was asserting (if it existed) would be produced by association with the remembered assertion, and would therefore not be a genuine case of memory." So maybe I never embraced the arched red limb of the Central Park tree. Maybe I never witnessed its patience and struggle. Maybe this tree is a figment of my imagination, an indication of longing, not experience; of metaphor, not fact.

Without memory's treasure trove, we would have no friends, no opinions, no purpose. We would be a black hole, existing and not existing at the same time. Our recollections, however faulty, give life meaning. They are soul material.

The cherry tree that so impressed me 16 years ago might not be in Central Park anymore. Or it might be somewhere unknown. Or it might be an altogether different tree. But I was surely here. I was in the place where I once played and loved, where I learned about life's contradictions and joys, where I grew up, twisting from the Earth like a cherry tree, reaching out to embrace the world. I was here in this lush landscape, being redeemed by Ice Age rock formations upon which this park was put, enjoying the company of an old friend.

Eventually, we found an open space to throw the Frisbee. Nearby there was a cherry tree, one limb, a little worn, arching toward the walking path. Someone had etched a few words into the bark. A lightning strike or some other violence had cracked the trunk at its base.

"Is this the tree?" my friend asked.

Today, I look out my window at a magnificent live oak, its trunk divided in two, its limbs bending knowingly this way and that, aware of one another, determined to show the best of themselves. The corrugated bark is a testament to the labors of growth, the perfect dome canopy a proud display, a positive "Here I am."

It, too, has a thick, arched limb. It, too, stands implacably over its domain, satisfied with itself, content to be rooted. Perhaps I should climb up. Perhaps I should go to this tree, my tree, and embrace it. And from a higher perch, momentarily joined with another of nature's wonders, in the company of squirrels and bluebirds, I could survey the land and reconsider my place upon it.

I could remember who I am.

Reach Adam Parker at 937-5902 or aparker@postandcourier.com.