View from my Studio Window, Before
She buds.
She blooms.
Over the course of ten days, she comes into her full glory. Every day I sit looking out my studio window, mesmerized at the splendor of her branches gracefully sheltering the spot my log once called home.
Today, as I eat a pack of crackers and call it lunch, I listen to Clarissa Pinkola Estes tell the story of her trumpet vine and how its raucous blooming annoyed the neighbor man. One spring he harrumphed over and asked her to cut it down. “I can’t do that,” she told him. “It’s an old vine. And beautiful.” One day she arrives home to find that the neighbor man has cut the vine down to the ground. And on her side of the fence, mind you. Once the initial wave of grief passed, she digs up the vine, plants the roots, and in a short while, the vine is growing again.
I cover my mouth in horror of the neighbor destroying the trumpet vine, pick up another cracker, and look back out at my tree of graceful blooms . . . to find it laying in the water. Tracing it back with my eyes, i see where the tree trunk snapped, the blooming limbs landing in the falls. Once again I cover my mouth in horror and disbelief.
Later, while I am on a business call, The Engineer and Mother go out, cut off a few small branches, smash the ends, dip them in a root-activating powder, and plant them in soil. The trumpet vine grew back, so I’m hopeful these will begin to sprout, too. Maybe in a few years, I’ll sit mesmerized under the beautiful blooms framing the waterfall (I’m on my 17th day of yoga, so I might be able to get down and back up by then – it could happen.) I’ll spread out a quilt and picnic under the gloriously blooming tree, telling her the story of her grandmother who once thrilled my eyes and salved my broken, grieving heart with her beauty.
I believe that the log is gone because it was making room for something new and the tree longed for her friend and followed. It is kind of analogous to these times and I for one am hoping like crazy that we will rise up from this ride on the river and not have to long for our friends but meet them later down the river. I truly believe that we will emerge at the least;most appreciative of our human connection. “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” Dalai Lama
So sorry to hear about your tree leaving, Jeanne. So happy the Engineer and your mom rescued some branches, and someday, they’ll be trees bringing you joy and listening to your stories about life on your waterfall. I like Victoria’s analogy, about leaving and meeting up later on, down the river. <3
My God, Jeanne, so many things happening in your waterfall back yard. What kind of cosmic forces are at work there?