It's all about balance, lately.
How to balance weighty expectations with the fleeting desires of the heart? How to balance that which seems to pull in opposition, as solid as the dug-in, earthy toes of great trees and as light as their cotton seeds borne upwards on the shoulders of the pressure systems surrounding. We are all storms and the roots that drink from them. How do we slate our thirst?
The trees have the necessary knowledge to manage their growth and their resources. Deep rings of wet wood show seasons ripe with dripping opportunity, ready to be absorbed and transformed into flesh. Drier years; (for there will always be dry years,) there are rough round remembrances of thin energy and budgeted time. Just another lap around the sun. Just another skin strung up to the canopies. But there is always the green. The little buds in spring that push forth from brown bark and stretch their little fingers towards the skies. Little curls of leaf open like mouths to drink from the air around them and they shake, slightly, under the weight of cold morning dew. A deep freeze reminds that water embodies more than life itself but also time, and we thaw in relief at the touch of the dawn sun. A slow stretch, upwards, and a big gulp of fresh mountain air. (Will I have to describe the smell of fresh air to my children someday, when we are sneaking sniffs of bottled atmosphere from tin cans in the midst of murky cities?)
I miss the forest, clearly.