The Mesquite Tree

The mesquite tree grows determinedly, thriving regardless of its conditions.

In shallow soil, it grows as a bush. 

In deeper soil, it grows as a tree. 

Where conditions are dry, it grows deep roots capable of finding water.

The mesquite tree grows obstinately.

Chopped down to its base, it regrows, heartened by its roots and inspired by the air around and the light above.

I thought about mesquite trees randomly one day, recalling how as children we used to pick up the pods from the ground in our South Texas town and put them in our mouths to suck on. After some chewing and plying, aided with the support of warm saliva, the pods would soften and release a sweet and subdued taste – candy from nature. 

They aren’t the prettiest of trees. You don’t look at one and think about God’s glory. Mostly you notice the twisted branches that grow every which way but up. But they sit on the same soil you do, come from the same earth. They are familiar trees, with gnarly, wayward trunks telling stories about the challenges they’ve known. The bark is repellant; sharp and raised and patchy. We were determined to climb the strangely beckoning branches and immediately regretful afterwards, our little hands and feet rubbed raw, the sweetness in our mouths forgotten and not powerful enough to redeem a mean tree. 

Mesquite smoke is strong, too. My uncle Beto smoked a brisket at my grandmother’s house once and used this wood for the hours-long process. The product was as good as brisket gets, but the sweet stench of the smoke was everywhere by the time night and dinnertime fell – in my hair, in my clothes, in the meat. I was home from college that week, and I filled up with food and family and beer and laughter. Then in the wee hours of the night, my body recalled the smoky meat – decidedly rejecting it with a spontaneous surge of vomit  onto the cornflower blue rug in my grandmother’s guest restroom. Now, thirty years later, I remain wary of the smoke emitted by mesquite-fueled fires. It is too strong for me. 

When I left the Rio Grande Valley at eighteen, I learned about oak trees and willows and pear trees. I fell for their aesthetics – the strong, straight, vertical trunks and mostly obedient branches. I planted a live oak in the backyard of my first house, and then a hurricane came in late summer and broke it in two. It was a juvenile and not yet equipped with the girth to withstand the harsh winds of a storm. In my years in Houston, I’ve seen countless oak trees uprooted by hurricanes – laying on the ground, top-heavy and still, roots exposed – a heartbreaking sight.

But I have not seen a felled mesquite; I cannot pull one from my memory. Maybe that’s why they grow the way they do – haphazardly and horizontally – to survive the storms. 

Maybe that’s why we all grow the way we do – at odds with what we are told is the right way and rooted in the only way we know how – cultivated by our challenges, cultured by our upheavals. If we focused on our extraordinary evolutions, appreciated our unique conditions, if we better-owned our stories and made them the common narrative, what would that mean? Who could we inspire? What could we grow? 

Wherever you are in your journey, grow determinedly.

Grow obstinately in less than ideal conditions. 

Grow haphazardly and waywardly, visibly and proudly. 

Grow.