May 20, 2023

Good morning!

It’s Saturday, and on this day umpteen years ago, my mother woke up and said, “Oh dear, I think I’m going into labor!”

My odometer rolls over into a new year right as this balsam fir has put out fresh tender tips for its own new year.

I admire how straightforward trees are about growth and aging. They have no angst or agita or sentimentality about the passing of time. They don’t feel compelled to conceal the number of rings in their trunk, nor do they judge others for the number of rings in theirs. Each year is simply a continuation of the great big cosmic “hooray!”

“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.”

—Anais Nin

Onwards,

Clara