As Seen Through Pine Tree Eyes

"My truth doesn’t travel in a straight line, it zigzags, detours, doubles back. Most truths I have to learn over and over again." ~ Abigail Thomas

Pine trees standing sentry – we assign them abilities and attributes that belong to beings with eyes. We say, the trees watched over us. The trees saw our every move. The trees witnessed our comings and goings. They do have eyes, no? Look closely at the bark, the swirls and circles surely returning your gaze.

Cold enough now for fingerless gloves, which I forgot to bring. Red clapboard siding against the newly yellowed leaves, soon to fall into the water flowing over rocks towards some unknown destination. One the trees don't see. One I don't see.

Heart-shaped yellow leaves, a child with green hair running up a hill, a bearded parent trudging behind. Keeping up takes on new meaning at midlife, and even the word midlife suggests something so hopeful, that we should live so long.

At home, I spent the entire morning cooking and baking, preparing dinner and dessert for a birthday celebration – my love's 45th birthday was last week. Chili in our new crockpot, a beautiful if I do say so myself pan of cornbread, and chocolate-orange cake, ganache cooling on the counter. I sit here a ways from home, hoping it will be thick enough to spread later.

I sit here, on a date with myself, the kind I used to take quite often. When my kids were younger, this kind of time alone was so coveted. Now, it is not hard to come by per se but that doesn't make it a given.

The drive was gorgeous, the first of October not shy to announce itself. Take the curves, lose service, momentarily unreachable, alone with my thoughts and the season changing, time a mystery I've stopped trying to solve.

Then, browsing books, cards, people watching, glad to among others yet in my own company in a way that's simply different than kicking around the house. Since I work at home, it's novel, this type of outing. No plan, no timeline, just allowing myself to ease into it, until I am enveloped by this place with its sentry pines and red wood against evergreen.

If there's a truth I have to learn again and again, it's that this life is such a blessing. I take nothing for granted, though most likely this isn't true – that would take a monumental degree of awakeness which I surely haven't achieved. But I try! Oh, how I try.

I try to notice, to savor, to smile at every single child I see with my pine-tree eyes. I tell my heart it's working plenty hard. I tell myself it's safe here. Safe to relax. Safe to open. Safe to say yes and safe to say no. Safe to sleep deeply, safe to wake with gladness and ease. Safe to feel joy. Safe to celebrate. Safe to love this life so fully, so unbridled, to let myself flutter from the branches, no need to cling, no need to grasp to a season that's ending.

Each fall comes with its lessons, each year the High Holidays rock my soul awake and I remember that the point isn't to be tossed about but to be jolted into awareness that this is not a trial run. This is it. It's like that book title I love so much: "This Is Real and You Are Completely Unprepared" by Rabbi Alan Lew.

This is real. And maybe I'm more prepared for this moment than I give myself credit for. Maybe this is the season of not only looking at my shortcomings but of owning my successes. Maybe this is a form, too, of teshuvah, returning to another truth I keep having to learn again and again – self-punishment is not necessary.

Growth and healing cannot be punitive in nature. These things are completely antithetical to each other. So it would follow that I would smile in the mirror. It would follow that I would sit here admiring the trees and wonder, are they also admiring me?

Tangled tendrils, teach me how to let go. Drench me in contentment. Double back for me. I'm coming with you, I'm never leaving again.