It’s not uncommon for me to go for a short walk before I closet myself in the upstairs bedroom and sit down in front of the computer keyboard.  Anything to delay the inevitable.  A few mornings ago, while making my rounds, I snitched on the owner of the home just outside my window to the north.  

It’s a rental house; we don’t even know who owns it.  The renters recently moved out and now the home’s for sale.  The large tree in the backyard is nearly dead.  Once a majestic red maple, there are only a handful of sickly yellow leaves emerging at the very top.  My wife and I eyed the tree nervously the other night as we sat on the back patio for dinner, wondering if the trunk might be rotten and a puff of wind send it crashing down on our roof.  My wife confessed, “I’ve tried to get the attention of people looking at the house so I could tell them that tree is dead and the current owner should pay to have it cut down.  But no luck yet.”

There’s a small office for our homeowners’ association just around the corner that I walk by almost every day.  The other morning, for the first time in memory, the door was opened.  So I poked my head in, maintaining the appropriate social distance.

“Hi,” I said to the woman behind the desk, “I’m Spencer Swalm.  I know I recognize you, but, I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

“It’s Katie,” she said from behind her mask, “our daughters were friends in high school.  Good to see you again.  How can I help you?”

“We live over on South Ivy Court.  The house on the corner, just to our north, recently went on the market.  They have a large tree in the backyard that’s dead.  We’re concerned that it might fall on our house if it’s rotten and a wind comes up.  Is that something the homeowners’ association handles?”

“Yes,” she replied as she handed me a form.  “Fill this out and leave it with me.”

As I returned the completed form, I asked, “Is there anything else I need to do?  Will we hear from you?”

“No,” she said, “that’s all; we’ll take it from here.  And you won’t hear from us.”

Back in front of my keyboard, I looked out the window that faces to the east. There, I saw our maple tree fully leafed out for summer.  At the ends of supple new shoots, Its tender green leaves gracefully swayed and danced in the breeze.  

To my left, the brittle branches of our neighbor’s dying tree shuddered arthritically in the same breeze.  

I take a couple of medications to keep my bipolar disorder in check:  depakote and risperidone.  Both of these anti-psychotic drugs, not surprisingly, have side effects.  Among them are the shuddering tremors that cause me to occasionally drop a piece of food in my lap in the split seconds it takes my fork to go from my plate to my mouth.  (I take a third drug, metoprolol, to help dampen the shakes.)  

So, no, losing a piece of food from your trembling fork before it can make it to your mouth isn’t as damaging as having a tree come down on your roof.  Unless, of course, you’re talking about injured pride.  And do I like the side effects of the medications I take?  No.  But when I compare those with the real world consequences of unchecked bipolar disorder, the choice is obvious.  Been there.  Done that.