The biggest tree on our property wasn’t even ours. It was a massive Manitoba maple in our neighbor’s yard that stretched deep into ours – soft wood, sprawling branches, the kind that splits unpredictably when you cut it. And to make things more complicated, our yard slopes at the back, so even getting to it wasn’t straightforward. When I found out the tree was coming down, my head immediately started spinning with all the what-ifs. I wasn’t picturing hours of cleanup – I was just running through every possible scenario of things that could go wrong. Broken fence boards, heavy branches dropping the wrong way, chaos I couldn’t control.
I tried to get a handle on it by talking to the tree crew, maybe finding out how they planned to tackle it. But they brushed me off like I wasn’t part of the picture, and I walked away frustrated. It’s a strange feeling, standing in your own yard while something big is happening and realizing you have absolutely no say in it. And that’s exactly how it felt: I was not in control.
Confidence Meets Admiration
My dad came by with coffee, and we ended up sitting in the backyard watching the whole thing unfold. And that’s when my frustration started to shift. A 66-year-old man with heel spurs and a chainsaw climbed that massive tree – no ropes, no harness, just boots, balance, and a stubborn old-school attitude. He was a tree cowboy – reckless but effective, set in his ways, clearly trusting his instincts more than any modern safety standard. It was equal parts terrifying and impressive. And in less than two hours, the tree that had loomed over our property for decades was gone.
Out of curiosity, I asked one of the ground crew how many times that guy had fallen. The answer was about what you’d expect: a few times. He’s broken a hip. He’s been banged up more than once. There’s no way you walk away from that kind of approach unscathed. But there he was: older, weathered, still climbing trees with the same wild confidence. It made me laugh, because if you’ve spent any time in the fire service, you’ve seen that exact mentality before. Reckless but experienced. Rough around the edges but wildly effective. The kind of operator who makes you shake your head right before you thank them for getting the job done.
It was the same feeling you get sitting on a plane. You’re not the pilot. You’re not doing the flying. You’re just a passenger, trusting someone else’s skill. And as I watched that tree come down, the anxiety I’d built up turned into something else: relief, maybe even amusement. What had felt big and unpredictable to me was routine and manageable to someone with the right experience.
Letting Go to Let Things Work
And that’s the lesson that stuck. It wasn’t the tree that was weighing on me; it was the fact I didn’t have control. It felt like a huge deal because I didn’t know how to do it. But to someone who did, it was just another Tuesday. I’m not saying we should throw safety out the window or ignore processes, but I am saying skill and trust change the weight of a problem. The right people make hard things look easy, and sometimes the smartest thing we can do is get out of the way and let them.
The truth is, control isn’t always about taking charge. Sometimes it’s about stepping back, trusting the people around you – even the reckless cowboys – and realizing you don’t have to have all the answers for things to turn out just fine.
