Different Lives

As the days move toward summer and the leaves begin to emerge, the skeletons of trees I’ve been looking at in the fall and winter are obscured. It’s a slow process and inevitable and in the past, I’ve thought little of it. Yet it’s a profound change and not just visually.

This is another between-time, another moment of transition, the time when, for many trees, I can still see the outline of their limbs while the yellow-green, industrious leaves begin their efforts. I’ll notice some trees, fully leafed out, and remember their naked branches; others, as in this image, the limbs are still fully visible, even as the leaves overtake my awareness.

I do wonder about the implicit decisions a tree makes about the direction and thrust of its limbs. It must be a slow process, given their rate of growth. When I look, though, the branches seem to have changed direction quickly, as inaccurate as that probably is. Humans, on the other hand, change direction all the time!

It may seem odd to contrast growth in trees and humans, perhaps that just me straining for a comparison. Yet I know they live, just in very different ways that we do. Not less. Just different.