Treeline Reflection

I found the documentary Treeline very interesting, especially in how it made me think about trees in ways that I hardly ever do. The more I think about it, the more I wonder how they fade so easily into the background, when they’re not only physically enormous, but beautiful and fascinating as well. New Hampshire is famous for its fall foliage, but having grown up here I hardly notice unless the leaves on the ground start to rot and get in the way. 

I watched the film with a friend, who likened it to a documentary she had watched the week before about mushrooms. She told me how it had made her cry when it described the ways in which fungi communicate and collaborate; exchanging information and nutrients “like one big family miles and miles wide”, as she put it. I’m not someone naturally in sync with nature - I walk by the forest paths next to the on-campus apartments every day and hardly spare it a thought, let alone the level of emotional investment my friend had imbued into those mushrooms. But watching Treeline with her, I saw it. We stayed up late and talked for a while after the film had ended, speculating on what information or emotions the trees might be sharing with each other through the fungus networks - all completely scientifically inaccurate, i’m sure, but spending that time putting thoughts and feelings to the usually vague and faceless concept of “trees” made me feel like I understood a bit more the ways that the film’s interviewees connected with and cared for them.

One part of the film that touched me in particular was the section in which one of the interviewees spoke about people who care for loved ones’ trees after they’ve died. I think that to dedicate yourself to the continued protection of a living thing that they loved and nurtured in life is such a powerful way to honor someone who’s passed - sort of like they’re keeping a part of that person alive.