I was looking through my photos today and this one I took last week I had completely overlooked and yet today when I was scrolling, something about it demanded my attention.
Perhaps I had overlooked it because I walk past these two trees every day but I seldom look up into them, perhaps it was the angle that I took this at. Nope, that wasn't it. It was actually a reflection of something within me that I could see in the photo, staring me right in the face. I opened it in my editing app but couldn't bring myself to do anything to it, it screamed that there were no changes required! I studied it a bit longer.
The evergreen Fir looking so proud and showing off deep green vitality. A bit taller than the sister Hazel Pine, plumper and full of life. The Hazel Pine looking bare now, scraggly and rather unkempt, dropping the last of her leaves for her winter slumber, letting loose her spikey ball seedpods everywhere, the unsuspecting bare foot beware it's worse than walking on lego.
She was spectacular at the height of autumn, shining to the world, reflecting the gorgeous colours of sunset - all manner of golden hues, deep red, ochre tinged with green and I marvelled at her beauty, not once glancing to her counterpart next door, the forever green Fir that simply continued to display her continual steady deep, earthy green.
Perhaps that is what I've been feeling of late. I look around and see all the evergreens standing alongside, they have it all figured out, walk the path continually and never dip or drop a bough. Never faltering from that deep green. Stay the course through winter, fall, summer and spring.
Here I am, feeling like all my leaves have fallen and my spikey seedpods sometimes prick and jar those around me that I care so deeply for, yet inadvertantly impaled by my barbs. The winter wind comes rushing through and I lose more leaves, all my autumn splendour removed. I feel barren, bare, shaken, vulnerable and exposed. Yet I know that this is what winter is for. Drawing back my resources and pulling myself back inside, hibernating, finding my own inner warmth, finding solitude and gratitude. Forgetting the noise, the wind, the cold outside. Bracing myself and letting my roots deepen even as my last leaves touch the ground and my seedpods scattered everywhere cease to be. That is when I can regroup, accept that the evergreen Fir is so very different to me and yet, we are both trees, just different types with different life paths, different seasons, different ways of feeling and experiencing the world. The life within me is still there, just muted and needing time to recharge, re-adjust to all the outside change so I can make the necessary change of my own, adapt and then set out to start again.
Spring time will come and new shoots will appear. New buds will fill the branches of the Hazel Pine and within weeks, the whole tree will awaken and burst into life once more.
There is no shame in being a different type of tree and there's no need to compare ourselves to all the Firs, Maples or Junipers. There is nothing wrong with having less foliage when the conditions and circumstances don't allow. Some people may like Firs better than Hazels, some people like Maples and Oaks. Just like yourself, the trees that are meant to congregate and create your forest will find you, no matter the season you're in.
I wrote this post a week and a half ago but didn't publish it as I've been knocked down and bedridden with flu which has rendered me kinda useless for a while. That aside, I still think it's worth publishing as it's an interesting walk of introspection I'm still taking. @stevenwood if you feel that it doesn't align in your community, please feel free to mute it, I won't take offence.
