Winter sends chills through my bones, while concurrently warming my heart. The stillness of nature's frosty season, the echos of the silence, the crispness of the air, the milky-gray sky, the isolation... They call to my soul and calm the rapid breath of my heart's anxiety. After all, I was an end-of-July baby. I was a mid-summer, sun-basted child coated in the tides of the Adriatic Sea; winter tends to still me and send me into hibernation. 

It is therefore unremarkable that the warmth of flames in a fireplace thaw, console and comfort me. I am in complete agreement with Henry David Thoreau: "I lingered most about the fireplace, as the most vital part of the house."

I carry a few logs to stack in the fireplace. It is ironic how stories, occasionally, find roots in such strange places. These logs take me into the past and I remember a massive 500-year-old tree 15 minutes outside of Dubrovnik in Trsteno, a small seaside Croatian village. I wonder how many generations, transformations and historic events the tree has observed. Is it a witness to history or is it simply history itself?

As I prepare to light the January winter fire, my eyes fall to the rings on the log. Biology class comes flowing from those coves in the brain that still hold old information. A search on Google provides the remainder...

Tree rings--similar to the lines that much too quickly alter our appearance--tell us a story. Is it a tale of the smiles and frowns life has etched on our faces, or the story of drought and rain that starved or nourished a tree? Perhaps they are synonymous, these rings and the lines. The rings of a tree tell us the tree’s age, from the first miniature dot in the middle, to the ongoing, expanding outer rings. Some skinny, indicating a dry season, some wider, signifying rain. Others leave scars from fire or damage. Ironically, what the tree hides on the inside, our faces and bodies are compelled to show on the outside.

The Trsteno tree is an Oriental Plane Tree and is one of the oldest trees in Croatia. The 50-meter (165-foot) tall tree was nominated for the 2018 European Tree of the Year. In 2020, it became the victim of fire when weeds burned near the location caused sparks, which the wind carried. The sparks caught one of the tree's rotted branches on fire. According to firefighters, who bravely put out the fire, damage was remarkably less than expected and the tree survived and thrived.

Some time ago, in the early-1990s this same tree welcomed me and my family. I was in awe of its majestic reach into the heavens. I simultaneously felt insignificant, yet powerful in its presence. 

Its history, well-known by locals, tells the story of the Oriental Plane Tree, brought to Trsteno from Constantinople as a sapling by Capt. Florio Jakob Antunov. For centuries the tree stood guard, witnessing Turkish invaders, Napoleon’s Army, Russian troops, and a civil war that would leave devastating attacks by the Serbian military on the stunning nearby city of Dubrovnik, known as the "Pearl of the Adriatic, and much of Croatia. Since the 15^th century, this grandiose tree testified to the sins of humanity, yet it generously presented us with photographic opportunities upon which we rely when our memories slowly fade. Tourists from across the world visit the tree and the arboretum that is home to an aqueduct, mill, the fountain of Neptune and the nymphs, and the picturesque garden architecture overlooking the stunning, blue Adriatic Sea. 

In the 1990s my family was alone in this place of fairytale beauty and legend as we made a quick stop to look at the big tree. The wind whispered through its branches like two well-acquainted companions. I was a welcomed visitor gifted with one of those memories that blurry, old photographs had no need to, nor could, preserve: Beauty, history, family, genuine delight and enchantment. The history of my childhood, my family and the past forever embedded in the memory of a fleeting moment.

Today, on a quiet, chilly, rainy day, I looked at the rings of the random Texas logs that had been sentenced to keep me warm in my home, nearly 6,000 miles away from a treasured, distant memory. I wondered what story this former Texas tree would have told, secretly wishing I were an arborist capable of discerning a little of its mystery. 

The lines of my face softened and I longed that they too grew on the inside, leaving a cover of bark for others to see. Perhaps, at times, they do...

I light the match. The flames tickle the logs, slowly awaken, and begin to consume the logs in their flames; I am left with a warm, tender memory from the past and am grateful that stories truly do find roots in the strangest of places.

Story and Photos by: Ivana Segvic-Boudreaux