A few hundred feet off Highway 18, about halfway between Portland and my mom’s house, there’s this pickup truck stuck up in the limbs of an oak tree.
My friend Zak pointed it out: I wonder how that got there.
I had made the drive less than a month before without noticing it.
My mom was out of town for the weekend. I took my boyfriend to finally see the Oregon coast. We drank red wine from the bottle and fell asleep together on one couch. In the morning, I couldn’t figure out the coffee machine, so he drove to the next town over and brought back paper cups with a picture of a pirate on the side. We went to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum and bought trashy souvenirs from the gift shop and I said to him everything in this moment is exactly perfect and six days later my brother was dead.
My first semester of law school, I had a mental health crisis.
I would sit in class and list things: this desk is real. the highlighter is real. my left thigh has a freckle above the knee so that’s real.
I have hundreds of photos from those first few months, all from my own apartment. Pictures of the sinks turned off. The stove knobs. The freezer, closed. My key in the door lock.
Oregon oaks are marcescent – the leaves change color at the same time as the trees around them, but don’t fall. The dead leaves hang on all winter. When the wind picks up, you would swear it’s raining by the noise of it.
Before he died, my brother drove up to Sacramento for an apprenticeship with a guy who made knives. I don’t know everything that happened there, but I know most of the ending.
All the outlet covers pried off all the walls.
I know that’s where you keep the cameras, he said. I’m not a moron.
They’re going to keep him 72 hours, my mom said. At least 72 hours.
We never talked about mental illness. Just sat next to each other in silence for decades. Fiddling with the car radio. Up in the tree.
Even at the worst of it, I was surrounded by resources. This is a privilege, undoubtedly. It was also profoundly unhelpful.
Career counselors and professors talked about income potential and market desirability and I pressed my thumbs as deep as they would go in the spaces between my ribs.
What does it matter how fast I can move, I thought, if I can’t get the hell out of this tree?
I didn’t need affirmations about the ways it gets better. I didn’t need vague promises of support; of “just let me know what I can do.” I needed someone to bring me a fucking ladder.
Someone did. “I will make you a doctor’s appointment right now,” she said. “I will drive you there myself.”
We don’t need to be louder or more persistent or more earnest about helping – we need to be more specific. We need to make it as easy as saying yes, because saying yes is hard enough.
My go-to question for a struggling friend used to be, “What can I do for you?” I don’t ask that anymore.
I ask, “Can I order dinner delivered to your apartment?” I ask, “Is there an email you need to send that I can draft?” “Can I take your dog for a walk?” “Can I find a therapist nearby that takes your insurance?”
Can I get you a ladder?
I was back on Highway 18 right before New Year’s. It was an unusually cold winter for Oregon, the schools had already run out of snow days. We drove at about fifteen miles per hour, leaning forward to see through the fog.
But there was that tree. Even in the frost, the leaves held fast. Withered. Brittle.
Hanging on.
