The gingko trees have all spoken to each other, and the lovely trees have shaken off their golden robes all at once. I passed the stark trees on my daily walk and stopped suddenly. I remember stopping to admire the fresh green gingko leaves as the year started out.
One year.
One paradoxical year.
One tumultuous year.
One <Please-fill-in-the-blanks> year.
Yet, the gingko trees went on as before. They grew leaves, they displayed them in their glorious green, and their resplendent golden yellows, till they went back to being stark stumps again.
Another year.
Another year of the unexpected?
Another year of surprises?
Another <Please-fill-in-the-blanks> year.
As I pulled the husband along on a cold, rainy walk, I told him that the same time last year when we stopped to consider the bare branches of the gingko tree, we had no idea what the year would bring. The same way that we don’t know what the year ahead would bring. I shuddered a little (I’d like to think it was the freezing winds of the storm). The young gingko nearby withstood the winds without a tremor.
“Well…”, I said, donning my philosophical face. “Whatever the new year brings, there is comfort in the fact that there is a constancy in nature. The gingko tree’s seasons.”
“Pesu (talk!)!” Said the husband and laughed looking at my sincere face. I joined him. It is so easy to say these things. Why is it then so hard to practice?
Maybe we need the tree’s lessons to be more than philosophical. A little more neurological: Belonging with Trees.
Read also: The night of the Gingko : By Oliver Sacks in the New Yorker magazine.
Nourish-n-Cherish 