Watching The Tree

"People in suburbia see trees differently than foresters do. They cherish every one. It us useless to speak of the probability that a certain tree will die when the tree is in someones backyard. You are talking about a personal asset, a friend, a monument, not about board feet of lumber."

-Roger Swain

I think I have already fallen in love with this tree. It is so pretty. I found it in my new favorite haunt, Tilden Park, in the Padre picnic area. Last year I found an absolutely gorgeous tree in Cull Canyon, and I tracked it's progress through most of the winter. Autumn in California, didn't seem to end in December. The Cull Canyon tree had autumn leaves well into March. It was like autumn had somehow refused to give up. On one hand, I found it so soothing to be able to take a short drive to the canyon, and be instantly near my favorite season, especially just after the first of the year, when nothing seemed like it was going right. I went there often, to get away from my own thoughts, and to get lost in my photography. Before I knew it, spring had arrived, and the last of those autumn leaves had finally fallen.

I can't believe 2007 has moved as fast as it has, considering how January never seemed to end. I was really sad when 2007 began, and now, despite everything that has happened this year, I am feeling very nearly back to normal. Sometimes, when your heart is so broken it is in shards, you really do just need to stop looking at how long it is taking to heal, and just focus on each day just as it comes, with no expectations. Earlier this year I talked a little about how much I had hated this year, and how I wouldn't miss it when the new year comes, but now I can look back, and I see all that pain with such clarity. Like when you have cried and cried, and then when you are all cried out, and you take a deep breath, and suddenly... you just feel relieved. Yes, that is my mindset now. Relieved. Grief has 5 stages, Denial, Bargaining, Sadness, Anger, and finally... Acceptance. The nice thing about acceptance, is that it is what lasts forever, not the sadness.

My 2006 Trees

"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity, and some see scarce see nature at ll. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself."

-William Blake, 1779, The Letters

-OndineMonet
Cull Canyon Park/Tilden Park
Castro Valley/Berkeley
Late Autumn/Early Winter 2006