The smoke from old cottonwoods

One of my earliest clear memories is my grandfather Ray’s back yard. And since it was a corner lot you might call it the side yard because it was open to the street and sheltered by a huge cottonwood tree that served as shade for the many times we visited Ray and Mary Ladd, my maternal grandparents. He would sit outside in metal chairs freshly painted and patched from rust with his friends under the cottonwood and conduct business.

Even though it seems as one moment now, the scene must have been different each visit but my memory seems fixed, as solid as the old cottonwood, thicker than it really can be so close to the house. His telephone had a marvelously long cord which he pulled through the back bedroom window out to his table. He had a full head of white/grey hair and always had cold pop in his outbuilding to the back of the lot which served as extra sleeping and storage space. We could get it ourselves from the fridge. We would sip the sweet pop and sit and listen.

Like the annual pollination that happens with native cottonwoods, this memory is getting more smokey as I am older. The cottonwood barren of leaves and shade. Memories roll up together like puffs of cottonwood seeds. Gathering and becoming indistinguishable from each other, rolling gently.