The First Cut Is The Deepest

The first cut is the deepest, or so sang Cat Stevens. For me, this song always carried a different meaning.

Every year, when the tree planting season begins and I cut the first hole with my shovel for my first tree, I hum this song.

"The first cut is the deepest, baby, I know"

It's true. The first hole cuts deeper, because I'm always out of shape and haven't done this kind of work in months. Then, the more I dig, the less I care because the muscle memory takes over again after a couple of hundred cuts.

Step, step, cut, plant.

Step, step, cut, plant.

Step, step, cut, plant.

There's such a rhythm and music to it as the shovel hits the ground, especially when several planters are creating the song of trees next to each other. Everyone in their own rhythm, yet so tuned together.

But last year, I learned yet another meaning of the first cut being the deepest.

And it was painful.

Not physically. Well, physically, too... I repeated the same movement thousands of times a day - of course, my shoulder didn't like it, but I was used to physical pain after planting trees for four years.

What I wasn't used to was the pain of my ego crumbling.

I worked hard for four years to prove that I was a good enough planter to be taken to Iceland. And there I was. My chest was boasting with pride from the improvement I made since my rookie days.

This was my dream. My ultimate goal.

And I made it!

I got of the plain in Keflavik thinking that I was one of the high-ballers (the really good planters, as we call them). I was sure I was going to make a shit ton of money, too.

Being selected for the Iceland season isn't a small achievement. The season is extremely short, 1 or maximum 2 months (while in France, we plant for nearly half year).

We have millions of trees to plant in this short time, and since life is so expensive over there you have to be on top of your game, so it's worth for the company to take you there. (They pay for accommodation and provide a work vehicle, too.)

But getting the job is one thing. Doing it is another.

The first three weeks passed as slowly as a sloth reaches for a branch. Our trees didn't arrive on time, so we got some mindless greenwashing job replanting dead trees from last season that got pushed out the ground by the frost.

The we had to go over the site again and fertilize them — the trees, that didn't even survive.

Wasting my life and energy on a job that felt like offering a kiss to the dead... what could I say? At least I was getting paid? At least I was on Iceland staring at a volcano in the background that reminded me of the giant poster my aunt used to have in her bedroom in the 90's?

But I didn't come for this. I came to smash my shovel in the ground, and finally figure how many trees I can plant in a day. And to prove myself that I am actually really good at what I'm doing.

Now you might wonder, didn't you already know that?

Well, yes and no. I knew I was good at planting trees in France (where I live and work), but looking at the numbers I felt like I was getting worse compared to when I begun. Truth is, I started tree planting in Scotland, where the whole process is different. We planted on mounts and in trenches, so on my first rookie day I planted more trees than my average in France.

The reason being that tree planting in France is a whole different story from any other countries I know of. We plant on prepared or non-prepared lines, following sticks. That means the line has to be perfectly straight, with a perfect distance between the trees. So it's way harder and more time-consuming than planting on mounts.

The quality is also more important than quantity, which means if the forester or my foreman checks my trees, and they aren't perfect I have to replant them - for free, of course.

The ground is often really though in the area where work (it's called Grand Est), some trees have large roots and some trees are even taller than me!

But Iceland is a whole new chapter in the tree planting book. Which I learned very fast when we finally started our site on the fourth week.

I knew it's going to be different from French planting style, and I thought it will be simple. You're basically planting on the Moon, with a wide surface stretching out in front of you and you're free to go as you wish. Hence, it's called free planting. The foresters only care about the density (how many trees you plant in a certain sized area.)

The first morning I received the wee birch trees on my parcel, with teeny-tiny plugs. Some were smaller than my hand in their full size. It can't be hard, I thought.

Apart from the first cut, which is always the deepest.

Except, it wasn't.

It was so shallow that it cut me instead. It cut my ego.

The ground was soft and sandy, but rocky underneath. With the first cut my shovel hit a rock and the vibration bounced back through my arm, all the way down to my lower back.

Ouch!

There was no problem with planting those tiny trees into the shallow ground. They fit easily, but making the hole so small was very difficult. I was used to really go deep in the French dirt and blue clay.

I ignored the ache in my whole right side, and kept going.

Step, step, plant.

Step, step, plant.

Step, step, plant.

In the first two and a half hours I planted over 1200 trees. My average in France used to be around 900 a day. But numbers don't make the good planter — despite the popular belief.

I was a total disaster. I planted across the neighboring parcel because I didn't even know where I was. I didn't find my way back to the cash (where we store the trees for the parcel). I even lost my backpack.

I probably double planted lots of lines, because the trees just disappeared after planting. They camouflaged into the dry grass and I hadn't the slightest clue of where I planted before.

Wherever I looked, I saw the same rock copy+pasted in every direction. Or so it felt. Like I was really on the Moon.

No vegetation, no life, nothing but rocks until my eye could see. It felt like the maze around me was only consuming my sense of direction with every step. My team was supposed to be planting near me, each on their own assigned parcel but I didn't see any of them. Not even my boyfriend.

My GPS system failed to track my lines and my exact location, so I couldn't even rely on that. I was on the edge of crying.

In France, I had my moments of mastery. In Iceland, I felt like a fraud.

By the end of the day there was not a single cell in my body that would at least whisper “professional or aficionado.”

When you know you excel at what you do — and I did— the last thing you want to feel is being a rookie again.

But that first cut showed me that in fact, I was a rookie again.

I spent four years working to achieve this dream, and for what? I had to throw out everything I learned about tree planting, and learn it all again.

I had to learn to navigate myself on this otherworldly surface, to manage my trees and get back to the cash while still planting instead of dead walking (when you basically just walk with no trees left to plant) and to fill my area in a productive way that saves time and energy.

And that's what was so painful. The first cut that was so deep — on my ego.

But there’s a lesson in everything if we're willing to see it. I didn't feel like I had much choice — I either fall victim of my own bruised egotism and go home, or I emerge from the debris and look at the work with the beginners' mindset again.

These little birch trees reminded me of something simple: they root where they land, and each year, they let go of the leaves they no longer need.

I wasn’t ready to go home—not from Iceland, and not from the person I was becoming, so I did what the trees taught me.

I saw this experience as a chance to shed the things that no longer served me — old mindsets, outdated methods, and the expectations of others and me.

I came home at the end of the season with a new personal best—4,321 trees in one day. But the number didn’t matter.

Let this be your reminder:

Sometimes the first cut is the deepest—not in pain, but in clarity.

Sometimes you have to become a beginner again, so you can remember why you even started at all. It’s okay to start again. Even the tallest tree was once just a seed.