This Aspen’s Stripping Can’t Come Soon Enough

I’m never ready for the change. Usually, I’m just rocking my summer, straight green-leaf chilling in my clonal colony, photosynthesizing the hell out of the Colorado air, then we get a couple frosty nights, and BLAMMO… we’re all gold as puppy piss.

Back in the day turning yellow was awesome. For two weeks every year we were rock star gods… sort of, minus the groupies and drugs. Every tourist, retiree, pothead, and camera fondler within 500 miles camped out and stared at our ripped trunks and shimmering foliage. The nature paparazzi stalked the shit out of us. Even if our root system wasn’t intertwined we couldn’t escape. At one time, we were the heaviest and oldest living organism on Earth until that bitch Pando in Utah stole our title. I mean really, who’s counting… 6,000 tons, 80,000 years old, and 47,000 stems?

Then I realized my boys were just clones of me, or vice versa, and I fell into a Motley Crue nosedive. Before I knew it voles and squirrels had gnawed my bark. An elk plowed my neighbor, and I’d lost bros to Scale, Tent Caterpillars, and Trunk Rot. I caught a flaming case of Slime Flux, and a Sapsucker nested near my crown. During storms, I’d arch up with hopes of a branch gnarling lightning strike. Sometimes I ached for a forest fire or the logger’s blade.

I guess our name, Populus Tremuloides, doesn’t help our rep — most call us Quaking or Trembling Aspen. But, just because we sport thin pale trunks and shaky leaves doesn’t mean we’re yellow in the metaphorical sense. On top of that, everyone thinks we’re fragile with short life spans. Well, I don’t see too many East Coast broad leafs thriving above 5,000 feet in alpine climates. Nonetheless, I have to hand it to those Easties — they bring the thunder each Autumn. Our little gold show seems minor league next to the full-frontal Fall assault of the Atlantic Seaboard. Man, I wish I turned a badass chili pepper hue just so people knew how pissed I am.

Turning yellow sucks. It’s like when you travel to Mexico, guzzle too much Cuervo, pass out on the beach, and wake up looking like a Baboon’s ass — and you’re sun burnt in all the vacation pictures. Same thing for us… people only snap photos when we’re all hopped up on extra sugars. Think about that next time you eyeball that Aspen grove motivational poster pinned to your cubicle wall… it’s just an impressive wide-angle portrait of a gang of carotenoid junkies.

Next thing I know caravans of bumper-stickered Subarus scream through my forest loaded with REI faux woodsmen and kids who piss on my trunk. Well guess what… I’m not like that Giving Tree chump. Once in a while I get lucky and my roots take out a careless mountain biker, but the best I can hope for is some clown grabbing one of my low hangers so I can bounce back and bitch slap him. And, don’t even think about being a swinger of birches on me. Sometimes I hear John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High” blaring from the hybrid cars, and I think to myself one of these days I’ll show you bastards a Rocky Mountain High. You remember that M. Night Shyamalan movie the Happening, when plants and trees emitted toxins that drove humans to kill themselves? Well, don’t think we weren’t watching.

And the grand finale? A damn Chinook Wind lumbers in, strips our leaves, and we freeze all winter. Those Pine, Spruce, and Firs with their year-round needles and thick bark got it easy. And how about this: at least you can see evergreens in the snow… we’re just a bunch of skier wrecking ghost trees when we’re naked.

So, next time you’re admiring your family portrait with the sweet Aspen background, just remember those majestic leaves aren’t offering their best wishes they’re flipping you off.

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Brandon Lingle’s essay, “A Fair Fight in a Neutral Location,” is a notable in The Best American Essays 2010. His award-winning writing and photography has appeared in numerous publications including The North American Review, Narrative Magazine, Mississippi Review, Evergreen Review, War, Literature & the Arts, Redivider, Anderbo, Adirondack Review, Juked, Blue Earth Review, and Hot Metal Bridge. He serves as Art Director and Nonfiction Editor of War, Literature & the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities.