You say 'mulberry,' I say 'muliebrity'

When they cut down the mulberry, its sap shone on its final ring. I wanted to let my own muliebrity run down my legs to honor it, but January is here. That springy mulberry has to go. My activist self was thinking, I bet the developer doesn't know human zygotes, or blastulas, resemble mulberries as they divide and form more cells. I am not pro life, but mulberry, muliebrity, and the human mulberry all have a bit of woman in them somewhere. Best represent.

Muliebrity means womanly qualities, and is derived from the Latin word mulier, or woman. Although the word doesn't share a common root with mulberry, the feminine association is there. Their berries are described on Wikipedia as “fireworks going off in your mouth.” Let's mull it over a bit. Muliebrity is arousal and menses. Mulberries are wet, sappy spring trees. To be a woman or mulberry means dark, internalized yin. To be accepting of either, you must tolerate a little water on the brain.

As the arborists threw the remaining stumps on the pile, I felt the vibrations in my tail bone. Trees are the record keepers, you know. Early Christians used to cut down the Celt's sacred oak groves because they feared their juicy, Pagan festivals. Only the most pious monks would let the trees rest for eight days to honor the spirits living in their branches. Then they burned them up. Maybe it was the sunlight, but that mulberry shone like diamonds as it flew out of the chipper.

Do you remember Fargo? Cemeteries are filling up quickly. Cremation is good, but what if you need your body for an afterlife? Cremation requires fossil fuels and caskets leak formaldehyde, so dead or alive, we are fucked. Do we send our loved ones through a chipper and use the bone bits in our potting soil? City wide mosaic project? I don't know?

Before it gets too slippery, let's not forget trees make oxygen. I am a woman who thinks a lot, so I use lots of oxygen. Still, I think about these inconvenient truths while I watch a mulberry take its last breath and try not to drink my coffee at the same time because it seems irreverent. I remember the heart shaped stub where it lost one of its arms and feel phantom pain in my chest.

These mulberries aren't flesh and blood, though. They belong to the local contractor I work for. Well, they used to be his morning matinée until a wealthy developer bought his historic property so he could transform it into a ritzy family farm home. 'Ritzy' and 'Farm' don't click in my mind, but look! Dark-eyed Juncos pop in and out of their branches while we review my boss's busy schedule, but don't let that allure you.

Mulberries are meddlesome. They spread out over time and crowd out other trees. They also become gnarled and impossible to prune. In fact, the mulberry is so resilient it can grow against a wall if needed. No matter where you stick her, she will spring up and branch out when confined. She will be wily and stubborn; she will contort and twist until she can alight on another sapling.

Muliebrity, when left unattended, can kill. Their wetness attracts fungus and blight. Some have even been known to weep and stain cars. Let's face reality. We can't go on hiding the melted chocolate and cum stains with perfectly folded afghan blankets or reusable shopping bags. Best smush our sticky pleasures between the pages, no matter how sweet the back story, and keep them to ourselves.

Then again, no filibuster has ever been known to stop muliebrity either...