Pilgrimage
At dinner the next night I told Rose about my friendship-themed gift ideas, the honey pot and my latest: fridge magnets with Eudora Welty’s “Friendship is inherently a magnet” on them. She ran to find her copy of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations so we could flip through the quotes on friendship and find some more.
“‘I would have friends where I can find them,’” she read, “‘but I seldom use them.’ Emerson.”
“Coasters,” I said. “No one ever uses coasters.”
“Yes! Perfect. ‘How few of his friends’ houses would a man choose to be at when he is sick.’ Samuel Johnson.”
“One of those tissue box cozies.”
“Yes.”
“I would happily stay here if I were sick,” I said.
“You are welcome, in any state, any time.”
I thanked her.
“You okay?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Are you going to tell me about that postcard?”
I smiled. “He’s a good friend.”
“Hmm, I don’t think that’s the whole story.” She squinted at me. “May, do you have a garden?”
“I have the whole university.”
“I mean at your house.”
I said I’d planted some things over the years, but nothing had thrived.
“Exactly,” she said. “What about that yew you planted? How’s it doing?”
“It’s getting tall.”
“Hold on. Where was that cutting from again?”
“Fortingall.”
She stared at me.
“In Scotland,” I added.
“I know it’s in Scotland. May, why aren’t you going up there to see it? You have to go see it.”
“I don’t know. I came to see you.”
“How can you be this close and not go up there?”
I didn’t know, by which I mean I was surprised the idea hadn’t occurred to me.
Rose was muttering under her breath, something about pilgrimages being important. “You have to go,” she said again.
“Would you come with me?”
“Really?”
I nodded.
Rose tilted her head and waited, giving me a chance to back out. When I nodded again, she jumped up. “Let me check.” She looked at her schedule on her phone. “I’d have to bring some work, but yes, I could do it.”
I don’t know how to explain it, but suddenly we had wind in our sails. I changed my return flight while Rose booked us a flight to Scotland and found a place for us to stay. “May, the Fortingall Hotel is right next to the churchyard where the yew is!” she called out, still on the phone.
I arranged a rental car while she packed a bag (including, among other things, her gardening gloves and a trowel because she never left them behind) and we were ready to go by midnight. A detour, and yet I’d never made a decision so quickly in my life.
WHEN JAMES BOSWELL, Johnson’s friend and eventual biographer, wanted to deepen his friendship with Johnson, he proposed they travel together. They went to the Western Isles of Scotland, remote and difficult terrain where they often had to sleep in tents, and once, a cave. The endeavor made our cushy Scottish plans seem trivial by comparison, but the concept was sound.
Rose and I flew from Stansted to Glasgow, then drove north to Perth. I adjusted to driving on the left more quickly than I thought I would, and thanked my mother for her good training. We followed the A9 to Ballinluig, then took the A827 west to Aberfeldy. From there we took the B846 to reach Keltneyburn, then turned up the single-track Glen Lyon road to reach Fortingall. It was a long and exhausting journey, but if Menelaus was blown off course on his way home from Troy because he hadn’t made sufficient sacrifices to the gods, I was getting off easy.
I could see the yew behind its wall when we arrived even though it was after dark. I’d looked at so many pictures of it online, I knew exactly which shape it was.
The concierge said, “Here to see the yew? One of the oldest living organisms in the world.” She’d obviously said it ten thousand times.
“We are,” Rose answered cheerfully.
“We’re full up with pilgrims at the moment. Always are in June.”
“How many of them have a cutting from the tree?” Rose said, pointing at me.
The concierge raised her eyebrows in my direction. “Really. Well, that is interesting.”
I turned to Rose. “I think I’ll just walk around a little now.”
“Go,” she said.
The tree’s once massive trunk, measured at fifty-two feet in circumference in 1769, is split now into separate stems, giving the impression of several trees. This is a result of the natural decay of the ancient heartwood, which would establish its true age. Nevertheless, modern estimates put the tree somewhere between three thousand and five thousand years old. It’s protected by a stone wall, but in 1833 a caring local noted that branches and even some of the trunk were still being removed by travelers to make drinking cups and other curiosities. A sign on the wall reads, simply, THE YEW.
I walked in the road next to the churchyard for a while, content to look from a distance. In spite of Rose’s encouragement, it still felt like a long way to come to see a tree. I went closer, but the gate in the wall was locked. Indignant, I put my hands on my hips, then leaned my forehead against the bars until I was cold.
When I got back to the hotel, Rose was smoking outside the front door. “How’d it go?” she asked.
I shrugged. “The gate was locked. I’ll try again tomorrow.”
Rose stamped out her cigarette, hesitated, then picked up the butt. She wiggled the door handle. “Oh, no,” she said. “We’re locked out.”
“Oh, my god. This is not going well.”
Rose smiled. “Just kidding. The concierge gave me the key. She’s a smoker, too. Thank goodness for people with bad habits,” Rose said.
Our room was clean and bright, though Grendel barely fit between the wall and the end of the side-by-side twin beds. I wanted the bed closer to the window, but hesitated. Rose threw her backpack on the bed closer to the bathroom.
“Go ahead,” she said. “This is your pilgrimage.”
“But I wouldn’t be here without you.”
“True.”
Rose used the bathroom first and when she stepped out, her long blond hair was braided down her back. She reminded me of a character in a Victorian novel, except for the black sweatpants and tank top. I changed and used the bathroom, too, and then we turned out the light.
In the darkness I realized this was the first time I’d ever traveled with someone who was not family. I smiled with my eyes closed.
“What are you thinking about?” Rose asked.
I opened my eyes. We were each curled on a side, facing each other across the little aisle of carpet. Rose’s eyes were wide open.
“Go to sleep,” I said.
“I can’t. It’s too quiet. I’m used to London.”
I got my phone and went through a number of white noise options. She picked “rainstorm” and I plugged the phone in between us.
“Perfect,” Rose said, and we both fell asleep.
THE NEXT MORNING was cloudy and cool. I thought the church might be empty, but after breakfast Rose and I found a team of older women already decorating for Sunday. A few other tourists were sitting and watching and the women didn’t seem to mind, so we sat in one of the pews, too. The flowers they were working with were mostly white and yellow: camellias, daisies, lilies, goldenrod, and meadow buttercups. They were adept at making beautiful arrangements and worked slowly and quietly, stepping back often to survey the effect. Most dipped a knee toward the cross every time they passed in front of it. They all wore trousers and cardigans even though it was warm.
After a while, Rose got up and went over to one of them. They talked quietly for a few minutes, then the woman gave Rose a white camellia, which Rose brought back to me.
“She says you’re welcome to go out the back of the church and see the yew.”
“You’re good at pilgrimages,” I said.
The others in the church must have been pilgrims, too, because after seeing Rose and me walk out the back, they followed until there were about a dozen of us in the small compound around the yew. We stepped slowly, plotting our paths so as not to bump into one another, dipping our heads in acknowledgment if we came too close. These were my people, but I still wanted them to go away. It took some time, but eventually they all drifted out until Rose and I were alone with the tree.
I would challenge anyone who has ever used the term “tree hugger” in a derogatory manner to stand in the presence of a three-thousand-year-old yew and not feel something. Those branches will beckon. Our primate ancestors spent longer in the trees than our relatively young species has spent on the ground and the trees still welcome us; they remember.
I’m aware not everyone feels the way I do about trees, but I have no idea why not.
The compound was smaller than I’d imagined, the shade colder and darker. The oldest part of the tree had lost most of its heartwood, leaving a cavernous space I wanted to sit in, but markers on the ground suggested we weren’t supposed to get that close. From the time we’d come in, I’d been pacing around the area slowly. Now I stopped.
“Do you want to talk?” Rose whispered.
“Not right now,” I said. “If that’s okay.”
Rose nodded.
In bonsai you often plant the tree off center in the pot to make space for the divine, a practice I respect with no real feeling for what it means. Standing near the yew, I understood. It was as if the silence around the tree were deeper than it should have been, the colors denser. If someone had told me there was a presence there protecting the yew, I would have believed it. Yews were considered sacred for centuries, still are by many gardeners. Yew hedges can withstand even the most merciless cutting back and recover as though nothing had happened. Low branches can form new roots and grow into trees where they touch the ground. Beams made of yew may sprout again long after they’ve been built into houses. The Japanese have a word for the calming, restorative power of simply being in a forest or among trees: shinrin-yoku, forest bathing. I was in the presence of only one tree, but it was enough.
I glanced at Rose, relieved she knew all this, too. I didn’t have to explain. I still didn’t want to talk, but I thought of how Rose had gotten me to Fortingall and I wanted to try. “I feel like I should say something, but I’m at a loss.”
“Me, too.”
“I planted the yew for my mother.”
“I’ve wondered.”
“Her ashes are . . . I planted it with her ashes.”
“Oh, May.”
“I’ve never told anyone. Except my father. He knows.”
“Oh, May,” Rose said again, and covered her eyes with her hand. Then after a minute she looked up. “I memorized the Lord’s Prayer a long time ago. Do you want me to say that?”
I shook my head.
“We are in a churchyard,” she reminded me.
I smiled. “True.” But I had remembered some lines I’d memorized from a poem by Wendell Berry about a sycamore and said them out loud.
“It has risen to a strange perfection
in the warp and bending of its long growth.
It has gathered all accidents into its purpose.
It has become the intention and radiance of its dark fate.”
Then, I must admit, I waited. I hoped for a breeze or a bit of birdsong—something that would acknowledge my presence. I’ve always wanted the pathetic fallacy—the idea that the natural world takes an interest in our affairs—to be true. Sometimes the signs are clear: rain falling on the president at the inauguration. Other times the indifference is haunting: a clear September day filled with death.
Standing in the churchyard before the yew, I got nothing. No wind, no rustlings, just quiet. After a while, I smiled and touched a branch and told Rose I was ready to go.
“That was perfect,” Rose whispered as we walked through the gate.
At a pub in Fortingall, we ordered pints and sat at a small table outside. The sun was struggling to come out. I usually dislike a midday clear, by which I mean I like consistency. I prefer a day to finish the way it started, whatever the weather. But Rose was delighted and her enthusiasm was contagious. A waitress about our age was wiping off tables, which were damp from an earlier shower. When a small group of young friends came up, she greeted them affectionately.
“When’d you get home?” she said.
“Yesterday.”
She beamed at them. “You brought the sun with you.”
My camellia was on the table between me and Rose. “I’m going to press this,” I said.
“Do you want to buy any postcards?” Rose asked mysteriously.
I smiled. “I’m going home tomorrow.”
“True,” she said.
I hadn’t given Rose a gift yet because I’d planned to find something for her in London. Back at the hotel I saw a drawing of the yew in the gift shop and I bought one for her. A little later I went back and bought another one for me.
ON OUR LAST NIGHT in Scotland it rained and the cars along the road outside our room were loud on the wet pavement. I slept fitfully and dreamed I was walking over lots of broken pieces of something—a collapsed house was my sense but the pieces were small and mostly white and everything was covered in the masonry dust you see in footage of bombed-out cities. The pieces crunched a little underfoot and I was walking toward my father but he was angry and shouting at me to be careful, to look where I was stepping. I immediately fought back and said it was fine, I wasn’t going to do any more damage, was I?
I described the dream to Rose at breakfast and her eyes filled with tears.
Perhaps a best friend is someone who . . . holds the story of your life in mind. Sometimes in music a melodic line is so beautiful the notes feel inevitable; you can anticipate the next note through a long rest. Maybe that is friendship. A best friend holds your story in mind so notes don’t have to be repeated.
Rose wiped her eyes. “Are you sure you shouldn’t move out of that house?”
“I think I’d rather learn how to live there.”
“But you’ve given it a good shot.”
I nodded and blew my nose and wiped my eyes. “Why are we friends?” I asked. “I’m older, I was depressed when you met me. I can’t help your career or introduce you to anyone.”
“May.”
“What?”
“You really want to do this? Fine.” She smoothed her palms on her lap. “I like the way you work. You’re kinder than you think you are. You’re sad and a little grumpy, but so am I. I don’t know. You’re making me think too hard.”
“Sorry.”
“This feels like a eulogy.”
I laughed. “Exactly. That seems to be the only time we summarize our friends.”
“Because it’s the best time.”
“Why?”
“Because certain things only come into focus when a person is gone. It’s sad but true. You need memory and loss to polish your thoughts. Otherwise you’re just writing a speech or an introduction or something.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“You don’t agree? What does Johnson say? How does he define eulogy?”
“No, I agree with you. But if you were going to describe me to another friend of yours, and you wanted to give her an impression very quickly, the way people do when they talk about their friends to other people, what would you say?”
Rose tilted her head and stared at me. Then she looked down. I thought I’d stumped her, when she looked up and said, “Prickly, but in a soft, long-needled way.”
“I like it.”
“Good,” Rose said. “Now what about me?”
I knew immediately. “Tall and determined and evergreen, like arborvitae.”
“I’ll take it.”
We took a selfie before we left Fortingall. I feel about the word selfie the way Johnson felt about finesse, “an unnecessary word, creeping into the language.” Nevertheless, we waited for the procession of churchgoers to finish, then stood by the wall around the yew, our cheeks touching. Just before the picture, the wind blew a strand of Rose’s long hair so that it wrapped over my shoulder, and I thought maybe that was the sign I’d been waiting for. Two people, side by side, looking straight ahead. I think C. S. Lewis was onto something. We don’t have music to reveal the direction of our lives, of course, but if we did, I’m pretty sure mine would have soared just then.
We flew back to Stansted and I had to get straight into a taxi to Heathrow for my flight home. We hugged and promised to stay in better touch. I got into the taxi and waved as it pulled away. A few minutes later, I got a text.
“Miss you already,” it said, followed by a tree and a heart emoji.
I regret the loss of real correspondence and am not a fan of the text. But if a certain poetry is being lost, perhaps a sense of immediacy and presence is being gained. Those words and, yes, those pictures right then made me happy.
“I miss you, too,” I wrote back. And after a minute, I added a tree and a heart emoji, and then a sun, and pressed send.
A few minutes later, Rose texted back. “May Attaway? Using emoji? Oh my heart.”
It had been almost nine months since I’d gotten my leave. I’d visited four friends and one tree and had five days left. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, but it was only June and I had until October to figure it out. To add to my windowsill, I had a couple of Rose’s pens and paint-chip cards. I also had the yew etching. I planned to hang it in the front hall when I got home. I was afraid it was going to look small in the otherwise bare space, but it was a start.