Learning from the trees, again

Photo credit: Booker Sessoms, 2016

As I look across the street towards the park, it only occurs to me later that I no longer can see the lake. The leaves have matured from springtime to early summer almost overnight, shielding the full park from view. It seems only yesterday that the branches were naked, or covered in almost translucent green.

The purple of the rainy night sky against the chartreuse of the leaves are a study in color-compatibility. I could sit at the window all day. In truth, I often do, which is why at first I don’t see how much has changed this past week. Subtle changes in the familiar don’t register until we reach the end of a cycle.

My mind leaps to the other changes ahead: my child’s graduation from college, impending moves of all kinds, the changes in daily rhythms and chores. I want to be present in it all, just like I have been present with the overwhelming smells and sounds of springtime this year. But I also know some shifts will be so gradual I only notice them once they are complete. Like my child suddenly being an adult in ways I still cannot fathom. Like my parents suddenly being old in ways I sometimes struggle to hold.

I study my face in the mirror to see if I also changed like this: radically, almost unrecognizably. I know, of course, that I did, but I cannot see it. I revisit conversations I had five years ago, and know that I would approach them differently now, but my face, to me, remains the same.

The park across the street has been a constant in my life for decades now. Ever changing. Ever evolving. Always the same. This is the true lesson in adaptability: how to stay grounded — rooted — in our values, and also allow for the change that must come.

I visit the trees daily. I hope, nay pray, that their wisdom somehow helps me grow.