They were good, the cedars. But also carried a bit of loneliness. Where were the others? Once, this whole valley must have been full of these guys and gals. And why were we humans so into trees? It seems like it was easier to get a human to care about a tree than another person. He thought about that tree on Hadrian’s Wall that got chopped down by scoundrels. Something about that riled everyone up. It was just a tree, but somehow it felt like its felling engendered more action, and actionable response, than forty gunman plowing down a thousand elementary school kids in forty schools. This seemed “asymmetrical” and “nonsensical” and yet, he admitted, there was something seductive and seemingly “wise” and irreplaceable about old trees that maybe made them easier to “comprehend” than human life itself. Being able to walk up and place your hand on its grizzly bark, this was an undeniably wholesome act. It felt virtuous, it harmed no one, it connected a person to the past.