MUSINGS FROM THE WOODS

It has been raining here for days. Not the usual misting we get in the NW but heavy rains combined with wind which makes me want to stay inside by the fire. Today though, I awoke to beautiful sunshine. I was quite mystified by this because late last night it was stormy. There are woods in the back of our home-the very reason we chose this lot to build on. As I watched the woods I realized something about my life. In our woods there are two types of trees: the evergreen variety and the deciduous variety. Working in a nursery, I of course, know the difference (probably all of YOU know the difference not because you work in a nursery but because YOU paid attention during your high school biology class). Looking at the trees, noticing the vast differences in the two, I came to the disappointing conclusion that I am a deciduous tree and not an evergreen.

The evergreens have the joy of staying green all the time. No matter how cold or hot it gets they just keep on being green. In the spring they display lighter green foliage of new growth which can be almost imperceptible unless you are looking for it. They are steady. Constant. Boring. The decisuous tree is not like that. They burst into spring with new growth of varying colors. They seemingly come to life and are noticed by all (except perhaps teenagers who notice nothing except themselves). Every year people comment on them and their beauty as though they hadn't seen it before. However, as I look in our woods today, it is a different story. The trees that were beautiful last spring; that captivated my attention this fall when the colors changed, now look bleak. Lifeless. Dead. Around these trees, on the ground, lie the remains of what had been new life. Dead, decaying leaves. Leaves which we quickly rake from our grass because if allowed to rest there they will kill the green lawns we meticulously manicure in the summer. Hmm.

The deciduous trees look dead to me. In the winter I want to yank them out of the ground because they look horrible compared to the constant color of the evergreens. There are a few trees that have a leaf or two still clinging to their lifeless branches. For whatever reason the trees refuse to let these dead leaves drop. It is as though they are trying to hold on to some semblance of life, pretending they are like the evergreen but looking, for all to see, like a pathetic picture of one who holds on to the dead things of the past. As trite as it may sound I feel like those trees.

I can honestly say I would not want to be an evergreen. That life seems mundane to me. I like the changing and the newness and the differing colors. I don't however like the deadness of this winter. I feel something close to hopeless that the spring will ever return (even though it does every year). I can't seem to remember the vision that the decaying leaves around me used to hold. The vision that was once so vibrant, so passionate is now lost to me; lying dormant on the ground of my soul. My only postive thought this morning is that the leaves decaying on the ground in my woods will, by their very act of decomposition, provide rich nutrients for the soil around the trees they once graced with their beauty. I don't understand that process. How can something decayed and rotten actually nourish and fertilize something living. My great friend Monika talked to me about the death process in the fall when all the trees were changing but I wasn't ready to notice it then. I couldn't make myself look and ponder. I can't seem to comprehend the "decomposition brings fertilization" process. Maybe I'm not meant to.

I don't have a sweet analogy to end with so anyone reading can log off with a sweet sigh of pleasure. No, I'm afraid the nature of today's musing is unresolved; like a song that ends with a minor chord. I'm left wanting for more this morning. Or perhaps wanting for different. I so dislike unresolved anything but that's what I have; what I am, at this point in my journey. So, here I will stay (as if I have a choice) and here I will wait for the process of my creator to unfold.