Roots

Hang on to your radicles, peoples. I'm about to go all botanist on you and beat a metaphor to death.

Our plant cousins exhibit two fundamentally distinct root systems. There are the stalwart members of the taproot clan, trees that drill a single root deep into the earth, a root sometimes longer than the tree itself is tall. A taproot so earnest it can cleave stone in search of succor. One cannot help but admire the mountain juniper rooted deep within rock, scarred and twisted by the bitterest winds yet steadfast despite all. Gotta give the taproot kin their props. They aim to stay come hell or high water.

There’s also the fibrous root clan. You’ve seen them...the cottonwoods drowned in rivers, their roots unearthed, exposed naked on the river bank. These roots, you see, are broad but shallow. They feast in benign environments where nourishment comes easy. Come a dry spell, the fibrous root edges farther afield, not deeper. The root roves until satisfied. Members of this clan praise the earth for its generosity by offering abundant shade and exuberant hues in autumn. Gotta love the fibrous-rooters. They dazzle ‘til they die.

Barbara Walters once asked an interviewee: “If you were a tree, what would you be?” She didn’t win a Pulitzer in Journalism for a query such as that. But the funny thing is, I can answer that question with confidence. I’m a birch. A member of the fibrous-root clan. My skin is paper thin, but in the right environment I’ve been known to razzle-dazzle. My roots extend across countries, but I’ve merely scratched the surface. And though I’ve weathered a storm or two, I’m vulnerable.

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Gratuitous Non-Sequitor:

I’ve been told on good authority that a rooster roaming about a horse farm in Maryland has been christened “Jonas” in my honor. I’m also told said rooster has “issues.”

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