A tree lives alone in a field near my house.
In the summer, it tells a story. As autumn peaks, the story changes as the color and shape shift. Now its structure is exposed — the bones, the connections, the underbelly — and the cold has come.
It tells a different story, yet you know it’s the same tree.
The sun warms the air, the days elongate, and the tree’s color and shape shift again. Its story follows. But that story is not the same as the previous summer. It will never be the same because the tree has lived through that similar yet unique season of exposure. Some branches died. New ones were born. The trunk has added girth and length. This year’s leaves could never be the same ones of last year.
Yet again, you know it’s the same tree.
And the pattern continues for 10, 50, 100 years. Each year, the tree is the same, but its story changes.
