Standing still

September 3, 2015 · 0 Comments

We have been in Shelburne for six years now. Before that, my opinion of trees was that they are peripherally pretty.
Since being here, we have hiked at least once a weekend in Dufferin and Grey counties, many kilometers of the Bruce trail, Devil’s Glen, Walker’s Woods and so many others.
The gentle metronome of our step against the changing ground reassuring, the sunlight filtering through the varied shapes of each leaf; a myriad of coaxing sounds and smells surrounding us. It is not work, but all the same you become aware of new muscles and can experience the most surprising motivation and focus.
This focus is my attempt to still time; to call upon it to slow down and show me more than just a tree in the breeze. When spring unveils her design, a hymnal of Fibonacci spirals, pouting flower buds and the tentative promise of endless swaths of varying greens, it is the buds of the trees I am drawn to inspect, to admire. I know I have the opportunity to watch them unfurl and multiply into summer’s green curtain.
To linger outdoors and appreciate the fleeting hummingbird wing of our hottest season seems like destiny, living here, instead of the suppressive, palpable heat of a concrete summer. The inclination to be ‘too hot’ in the summer, is always for want of a tree. Beneath their leaves we daydream, rest and romance, share secrets, refuel and reflect. Way stations on an endless walk or a shield wherein a particularly good book can be absorbed, trees are, in this way, both family and friend to us harried humans.
I teach my daughter not to rip the leaves of trees we pass. If it’s a favourite tree, we will often stop to run our hands over the bark, say hello and keep walking. I do this with other antiquities, but there aren’t any security guards asking me to keep my hands to myself. A leaf’s structure has always held a special fascination for me. When I was very small, I would sneak bits of iceberg lettuce in the produce aisle. I was amazed that the leaves had water inside. I still come close to a leaf and regard its tiny, two dimensional network of veins and stop what I’m doing to imagine the infinity of creation underway; nature’s clockwork dance, forever ambient.
My eldest is a seasoned adventurer, and has her landmark trees. We stop together, to let her baby sister run her pointer finger over the leaves, encouraging her to be gentle. This legacy is one easily forged with the greenery surrounding us in the Hills. A mottled trunk to lean upon, a cool breeze to breathe in, and the roots running parallel beneath our feet, holding us up: this is the way of the tree.

By MK Martin