Of Elephant Trees, Courage, and the Crushing of Cancer
Elephant tree branch
elephant tree
Elephant tree
elephant tree red sap
Elephant tree on South Mountain
"If I never come back to this trail, it will be too soon!" I had declared at the end of 2017 when a seven-mile hike on South Mountain had ended on a no-name trail on a hypotenuse shortcut from the National Trail down to the base of the mountain. We had passed several abandoned mines, the scattered tailings sharp and jagged on our hiking boots and brutal to the paws of our dog, Mollie.
Kevin finally had picked her up, carrying her through the worst of it, and the fact that Mollie had allowed herself to be heaved onto his shoulders--even with a wagging tail--was the exclamation point to the difficulty of the descent.
"Never again!" I had said.
Yet. Yet. While on the trail, I had snapped a photo of a stumpy tree I didn't recognize. White, peeling bark. Fat trunk. Red-colored, young branches. Short, fern-like leaves. Purple berries.
An elephant tree, I discovered after research. Busera Microphylla. A protected tree in Arizona that also grows in the extreme south of California and Mexico.
I had read about the tree, but never seen one. A rare tree, but nothing like I had imagined. Elephant made me think grandiose, not a tree so named because of the thickened, water-storing or pachycaul trunk (Pachy = thick and caulis = stem) and stout branches that reminded people of an elephant's body parts.
"I wish I had gotten a photo of the entire tree and not just the branches," I said.
"I am free this afternoon."
"For what?"
"To go back and take some photos."
"Go back?"
"Sure. Why not?"
I reminded my husband of the terrible descent. Of the ankle-twisting rocks. Of carrying Mollie.
"We will be going up, instead of down, and we will loop back on another trail," he reasoned.
The lure of the rarity was too strong and we found ourselves back on the trail, looking for what I thought was the lone elephant tree I remembered from our hike three weeks earlier.
But we didn't find just one tree.
"There's one," Kevin said, only minutes after we began our ascent, pointing to a short tree with its tell-tale widened trunk.
"There's another," I said, pointing to one about twelve feet away, the peeling bark evident in the afternoon sunlight.
"Whoa! Look at this one." Kevin pointed to a tree with an octopus of branches, making the tree wider than it was tall.
We took photo after photo, discovering at least twenty-five elephant trees, in different stages of growth on the four-mile loop on South Mountain. Closeups of the branches revealed the red sap or resin collected at one time by Native Americans for important ceremonies and for medicinal uses, including scorpion stings. Some believe the incense was also burned in Aztec and Mayan temples.
The crushed leaves had a strong fragrance reminiscent of frankincense, camphor, or as one writer described, "a cross between pine needles and orange peels."* The scent clung to our clothing as we hiked back to the car--a strong perfume from this tree that collects water in its fat trunk in order to survive in difficult circumstances, sometimes surviving a year between rainfalls.
Recently, I spoke at a Head and Neck Cancer Support Group, touching on my dad's cancer that was first discovered in his jawline. When I concluded my story, each person in the circle shared of the challenges of having treatment for cancer on that particular area of the body.
One man shared of having a section of his tongue removed. Another talked of the challenges of therapy to learn to swallow properly again. Another of ringing in the ears after radiation. Another talked of numbness.
But the most common conversation was about food--the loss of taste after treatment, the changing of flavor, and the slow returning to the enjoyment of eating as more than a task for collecting calories.
"I still can't eat chocolate."
"I can't taste anything yet."
"I put hot sauce on everything now."
"It's more of a texture, than flavor thing."
Around the room, these survivors shared, encouraging one another, reminding each other how far they had come.
"Sometimes you can't see improvement day to day," an elderly gentlemen said about the return of taste, as he gave advice to a man who just started treatment. "Remember how you felt a month ago or two months ago and you will realize you are improving."
Others nodded in agreement as they added their bits of wisdom in this sparse landscape where hope must be collected like rainwater in widened trunks and stored in memory for hard days.
I found myself returning again and again to their comments after I returned home to my daily routine. I thought of re-learning tasks like swallowing and eating. I reflected on the bravery I had heard around that circle.
I had brushed against their stories and the scent of courage had permeated the room. The crushing of cancer had only made it stronger. Days later, it still clung to my clothing.
*http://tchester.org/bd/species/burseraceae/bursera_microphylla.html
Happy 2018!