Non-Fiction
Trumpets / Charlene Wang
Los Angeles, August 2020
They are most fragrant at night. An ambrosial scent mixed with dry Southern California breeze drifts through my windows in the dark. The brugmansia tree in my small, plain backyard is also known as an Angel’s Trumpet. Dramatic, foot-long tendrils populate its canopy—cream, chartreuse, and finally unfurled petals flush with coral. These flowers bloom generously and quickly. Wild and brash. Clarion-shaped pendants loom. When sunlight hits, the colors shine and saturate. It’s an impressive canvas—and it covers everything.
They could be harbingers in a fraught time, but they bring life. Hummingbirds, mourning doves, sparrows, warblers, and nightingales flit in and out. Bees, aphids, and spiders stay to get drunk on its narcotic leaves. The noisy, panicked crows knew about the earthquake swarms shuddering Los Angeles before I did. Once, I startled a crow off the roof near the tree and stared at its shadow as it receded into the sky.
Over twenty-four weeks in isolation alone, I’ve watched two seasons and many cycles of my brugmansia tree. Through wildfires, social unrest, and earthquakes. It sheds quickly and starts again. At the end of its cycle, it sounds thin. Inside, I am quiet and still. I now look at the world and my tree through the lenses of my windows and frames of my doorway. I’ve learned to look slowly, patiently. At night, I watch sci-fi movies and westerns. I keep my windows open.