A cut too far

I'm numb. Struggling today to concentrate. Aware that I have very little else to do but process information about the community where I live. 

Recently I've been trying to be positive about being here. I really have. I've been walking a lot more and trying to capture things. I've been trying to be present.

On Monday I woke up feeling refreshed and happy. I had a lot of work to do that day and I began early, like around 6 a.m. or so. As the light of the day began to rise, I noticed out the window that the sky was looking very promising for a beautiful ballet in the clouds. 

I went out to investigate closely just before 7 a.m. The almost-full moon was to the west, directly opposite the rising sun. Energy filled me, capturing a time and I felt so incredibly happy to be alive in the moment in a space I love. 

I didn't have enough time for a full walk so I walked a circuit around the park. I saw something worth photographing in order to check in later on something. 

This was the only notice I had

For now I'll skip the story about the beautiful cloud formations I saw at the time but I stopped thinking about the White Oak for a while. I felt absolutely full of a sense of purpose and perhaps hope that I could keep doing what I'm doing for a while. 

I went back to work. I don't remember what I did that day anymore. 

Just after 8 a.m. I heard a chainsaw. I sprinted out to go see what was happening. A hickory next to the White Oak was being taken down, a tree that has been like a member of the family to me. 

I had a conversation with the contractor who explained. I was not very happy, and I knew I was not happy, so I tried to calm myself down as best I could. The conversation was civil, but I expressed my rage at the city for not communicating what was about to happen. 

I wrote to the urban forester and asked about it and he confirmed and said that the White Oak might be coming down, too.

I was in the middle of a story writing about whatever it was I wrote for C-Ville Weekly. Tomorrow's newsletter and podcast will also likely have more from a meeting of City Council from September 9. Today I didn't feel at all interested in finishing it. 

But still, I did end up writing a second story on the tree being removed. That removal took place on Wednesday morning, and I caught the last pictures of the White Oak before it was removed. 

My heart began to break

The first story I wrote captured how a nonprofit advocacy group had removed the entry on this tree from their list of notable trees. That made me so angry, an anger I don't think will dissipate quickly. I told my contact there I will no longer take sponsorship money from them. I may change my mind on that, but I also may make other decisions that make that a moot point.

I'm not happy in this community. I've not been for a very long time. 

I published some of my personal thoughts in the newsletter yesterday and think I've broached a journalistic line. I worry now that I'll make other personal thoughts about opinions I have about this community, and that's not something I need to be doing. Especially if I'm to make my living writing the way I do.

I've worked really hard to build what I have and as that White Oak did, so did some of the way I frame my relationship to this community. Perhaps it is just as fragile as that tree, a tree I believe deserved better than to be chopped down without public notice.

Beware the fucking leopard.

I remember other breaks in my life. Times when it was clear that things were not sustainable and I had to make a change. But these days I'm not sure I'm as flexible as I was in those other times. 

So I don't know what will happen but I know that a lot of my thoughts also come from a sense that I am no longer interested in this place. Everywhere I look I see the results of prior stories as well as what could have been but never took place. 

Right now if I look out my window, there's a huge gap where two large canopy trees have been removed. Two more are coming down soon. 

I don't want to go in the park to see it. I don't think I can do that for a while. Those trees helped hold me together here, part of an important landscape. I understand the reasoning for their removal, but I also see other systems that broke along the way. That includes creation of a tree protection ordinance that doesn't seem to really have been used.

And the thing is? I can't cover this story anymore as a reporter. By my standards, once I've expressed an opinion on something, nothing else I write on the topic should always be viewed with suspicion. 

This matters to me. Over my life time I've watched advocacy organizations mask their agenda in tones that seemed neutral but are funded to influence policy outcomes. They're on a chessboard I want no part of, but have to understand to try to get out to all of the mere players. 

But this is not a piece of reporting. 

So I can say my theory is that the landscape to the south of the playground and splash pad have been slowly affected by stormwater that perhaps could have had better drainage controls. I've seen rivers flow down the entire embankment, with one channel aided by a section of the manufactured hillside that has eroded over the years by runoff from powerful storm after powerful storm. 

But I cannot pursue that story. Just like I can't really pursue another story I'm working on because I have a conflict of interest. I work too closely to so many things, and I'm concerned that over time there will be more conflicts of interest.

Who knows? I do not. I only know that I've thought about a lot of places I could think about living again. Places where I might have some history, with lots of room to explore entire new systems. Perhaps I could be a journalist there, doing the work I love to do. Perhaps I could get a job somewhere and not give up this career.

Perhaps I stay here, but I feel so penned in. My journalistic standards prevent me from really being able to fully be a member of this community. I view so many people with suspicion and have reasons to back much of it up. Others are just the wear and tear that comes from being in a community with so many people with sharp elbows.

In conclusion, I'll say I was also angry because someone who I've asked to stop asking me for money asked me for money again. I can't write any of that out publicly but leave that crumb for perhaps another night.