Nothing in this world is permanent and we are foolish when we ask anything to last ... but surely we are still more foolish not to take it in while we still have it.
- W. Somerset Maugham
I've learned this truth over and over again since I began blogging and photographing our journeys these past ten years. Sometimes I experience the truth of this quote in the collapse of beloved barns, and sometimes the pain of loss comes in things one should not even expect to be permanent. Either way, the loss feels the same, expected or not.
One of the advantages of being a passenger on our travels is the opportunity to 'spectate'. Often the things I'm able to notice as a passenger is something that would be nearly impossible to notice if I were driving, especially on the narrow dirt roads we often take where John is focused on pot holes, wildlife, and navigating oncoming traffic where there is barely room for us both to squeeze past each other. I have none of those worries, so I have the luxury of just taking in the sights and back in 2015 I first spotted this particular wonder of nature.
If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know I often see 'things' most people miss. It's not that I'm a better observer, I just see things 'within the thing' others see. In this instance, I saw a heart .. a heart inside of a broken and partially decayed tree. This particular tree was on a seasonal road along the Dunham Reservoir in Grafton. Since 2015, I've photographed this tree multiple times over the years, almost every time we were in the area. When I find something that strikes my fancy, I photograph it over and over again, from different angles, in different seasons, etc... I think I counted about 20 photos of this particular tree taken over the past 10 years. This year's first trip of the season made my heart do a little pause, a pause not unfamiliar to me when I find a subject close to my heart has taken its last breath. Just as with barns I know are standing on borrowed time, I knew that this day would come. Still, the day I'd feared had finally come.
At first I didn't realize as we drove very slowly down the narrow, dirt road but then it registered. "Stop", I said. "Back up". John dutifully did as I asked (demanded) and as we backed up several yards I saw what I had almost missed .....my beloved tree had taken its last breath and all that was left standing was about 5' of the trunk. The 'heart' was broken and lay wounded on the ground. My heart was broken too.
This was only a tree, a tree that was probably unnoticed by the majority of people traveling this road to launch a kayak or enjoy the view. It was one of thousands of trees in this forested area along the Dunham Reservoir, just like each of us is just one of millions of people mostly unknown, unrecognized and irrelevant to the majority of people who walk our path each day. Although we don't visibly stand out in a crowd, each of us is unique and possess a number of talents and traits that are valuable to some, yet are invisible to others. Like trees, we don't 'stand out' and for the most part we're just another face in the crowd, another taxpayer, another person in the grocery line. We may be familiar to some, appreciated by some, known well by others but to the masses, we are just another face. To most, my tree was just another tree but to me it was a familiar, friendly face that I admired, and that friendly face met me on my journeys and quietly conveyed that all was right in the world - at least in that corner of the world.
I think sometimes we take things for granted, we take people for granted. We become accustomed to their presence, to their contribution to our life. We get complacent about what a difference they make in life. We stop noticing them, stop appreciating their uniqueness, stop noticing the very things about them that first caught our attention. We take them for granted and forget that everyone's time has a start date and an end date. We just don't know what that end date is. Whether it's a tree or a person in your life, maybe my fallen tree is a reminder to look around and see what you might be taking for granted. Maybe it's a person you're taking for granted. Maybe their end date isn't as far in the future as you think it is and the time to savor is NOW. Don't wait till it's too late!
Now this isn't the only tree that I've become attached to. There's another one in Grafton that caught my attention early on in our travels. Maybe one day I'll share that one.
There's nothing wrong with having a tree as a friend.
- Bob Ross
In honor of upcoming Mother's Day.......
She’s the very Tree of Life to those who embrace her.
Hold her tight—and be blessed!
-Proverbs 3:18
