I Found a Note in a Tree

I wish I'd never opened it.

Hi,

On most days I try to go on a walk through nature to clear my head from the horrors of life. Because as much as I like people, I also think it’s incredibly important to get very far away from them.

To be reminded that there are also birds, lizards, clouds and trees that we share the planet with.

That it’s not just about us.

It was during one of these quiet, reflective walks that I encountered something hanging from a tree.

Someone had scrawled “This is for you” on a folded piece of paper, which they’d then suspended from some foliage with a piece of string.

Grimacing, I opened it to reveal something worse than I’d ever imagined.

A poem of affirmation.

In spring, every butterfly’s different

In winter, no snowflake’s the same

Like nature, we’re all very special

So love the way that you came.

I felt physically ill, even worse than that time Dave Grohl revealed that he had helped create a human child outside of his marriage. The brief tranquility in my mind had been replaced with not only a ChatGPT-esque poem, but the realisation it included a fucking social media handle.

Social media is probably the single most damaging invention of the last 50 years, and here was a note not only reminding me it existed, but an instruction to visit ASAP.

I don’t know why humans feel the need to exert their will over every other living creature, but we can’t help ourselves. Not even the foliage is safe.

Here was an innocent tree turned billboard; no less grating than a full page spread advertising a Black Friday sale.

---

I walked on, taking some deep breaths to steady myself. To transport my mind back into nature.

I closed my eyes and breathed in the smells of grass, air and dirt. I focussed on the chuckling of a squirrel and the tittering of a California scrub jay.

I opened my eyes.

Another emotional terrorist had been hard at work.

“HAVE A NICE DAY” was written out in sticks, instantly making sure I was having anything but. Whoever had created this abomination had surrounded it with rocks, nature transformed into an obnoxious Hallmark greeting card.

HAVE A NICE DAY

HAVE A NICE DAY

HAVE A NICE DAY

The all-caps were screaming at me. This was a threat.

I felt the horror those kids felt when they discovered those sticks in the forest back in 1999.

Miles away from pop culture, now it was all I could think about — every scrawled note from every serial killer flooding my brain instantaneously.

I hadn’t come to nature to be reminded of Michael Fassbender in The Snowman, but here I was. Walking on, somehow it got worse.

SMILE!

By this point, the sticks and twigs had surely pushed into parody land. Someone was trying to fuck with me, preying on every horror trope known to humankind.

I marched on, determined to let nature return. Don’t you tell me when to fucking smile / you Goddamn sticks on the ground / In spring every butterfly’s different / In winter no snowflakes the same / Like nature we’re all very special / So love the way that you came / Dear God make it stop

I looked to my left —

I looked to my right —

I wanted to scream, but no words came out.

---

It’s been several days since that walk, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Yes, I am sort of taking the piss about how annoyed I am. I’d put this newsletter in a similar genre to my trilogy about Joseph Gordon-Levitt — a topic I am still thinking about three years later.

What I mean is, I am not that annoyed — but I also sort of am.

There’s something about humans having to put their mark on every little thing, at every single opportunity, in every single setting. As I’m typing this, a California scrub jay is probably gasping for air, the string used to tie that poem to a tree now wrapped around its tiny neck.

I’m being dramatic, but stay with me. The best thing about a tree is that it’s not a person. It’s a tree. A tree doesn’t need poetry. It’s poetry unto itself.

“SMILE!” is the toxic positivity of a megachurch. Smile? Yes, smile — but also frown and be sad and angry. Or look entirely expressionless as you think your thoughts, safe in the knowledge you’re in nature — far away from other humans for a brief, brilliant moment of tranquility.

I know a large portion of the popular will disagree with me, thrilled at the quirk and joy of it all. I know this because I went to that social media account “notesintrees” and discovered that other people are loving this shit.

There is zero doubt in my mind this all came from a good place — the rocks, twigs, poetry and string — but then so did Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s puzzling social media art site.

Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. Let a tree be a tree. Let a rock be a rock. Let nature be just that — natural.

Sometimes, that means without us. And that’s okay.

David.

PS: If you’re one of the people who loved these notes and the rocks that’s entirely okay