How to fall
Today’s walk had me thinking again about all those fallen trees, laid out beside the trail like pulled teeth or harvested cane. Yesterday what struck me was the destructive violence of nature, its rich patterns of chaos, which evoked my own feelings of vulnerability, mortality, and loss of control. Today - maybe it was the incipient rain, the warmer air - the woods seemed animated with grace and fluidity.
This slender birch would not relinquish its inborn grace as it fell. Rather, it bowed gently, as though waiting for the final blessing of an executioner. The blessing will come, and sap will finally drain from the tree. But it may take years. Meanwhile we’ll have this reminder, like music from the slowly drawn bow of a violin, that what fades can also be beautiful.
Or this cool pile of scrap wood, tossed thoughtlessly at the side of an abandoned lot I walked by. I imagine scurrying into its labyrinth of intersecting tunnels and caves, a delighted rat. The random angles seem so full of energy, making these ordinary old boards seem alive with potential even as they sit graying in the rain.
And how could I look up at the fingers of this sumac stretching up toward the clouds, and not be inspired? I can’t comprehend the mind that constructed such a structure which, having perfectly served its summer function, then knows to fall away with such inconspicuous elegance. I think I’ll take this plant as my role model for the upcoming stretch of my own life.
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