The Island of Missing Trees

by Elif Shafak

Ficus carica, possibly be in love with a Homo sapiens? I get it, I’m no beauty. Never been more than plain-looking. I’m no sakura, the dazzling Japanese cherry tree with its winsome pink blossoms extending in four directions, all glitz and glamour and swagger. I’m no sugar maple, aglow in stunning shades of ruby red, saffron orange and golden yellow, blessed with perfectly shaped leaves, a total seductress. And I am certainly no wisteria, that exquisitely sculptured purple femme fatale.

I’ve been thinking that you are my country. Is that a strange thing to say? Without you, I don’t have a home in this world; I am a felled tree, my roots severed all round; you can topple me with the touch of a finger.

When I found you, you were already thousands of years old. And you are full of conflicts, my love, like anyone who has lived that long. One minute you are so gentle and patient and calm, I want to cry. The next minute you are out risking your life, getting beaten by mafia gangs. When you make love to me you sing about songbirds. You ancient soul.’

stories come to us not in their entirety but in bits and pieces, broken segments and partial echoes, a full sentence here, a fragment there, a clue hidden in between. In life, unlike in books, we have to weave our stories out

the first thing they notice is the trunk. These are the ones who prioritize order, safety, rules, continuity. Then there are those who pick out the branches before anything else. They yearn for change, a sense of freedom. And then there are those who are drawn to the roots, though concealed under the ground. They have a deep emotional attachment to their heritage, identity, traditions

Women, at least where I come from, and for personal reasons of their own, have, time and again, turned themselves into native flora. Defne, Dafne, Daphne … Daring to reject Apollo, Daphne became a laurel. Her skin hardened into a protective bark, her arms stretched into slender branches and her hair unfurled into silky foliage while,

as Ovid tells us, ‘her feet, so swift a moment ago, stuck in slow-growing roots’. Whereas Daphne was transformed into a tree in order to avoid love, I transmuted into a tree in order to hold on to love.