For no reason whatsoever, I’ve been neglecting my health lately. I just quit… trying? Paying attention? Something. A trip to the doctor last week showed me the damage done. Not pretty. I’m back on a medication I should never have stopped taking. (The prescription refills expired in January and I couldn’t even muster the resolve to stop by the doctor’s office and get a new prescription.) I’m going in for more scolding and mandates on Friday. I’m hopeful that getting some of these things back in line will help me escape this fog I’ve been in for a while now. In the back of my mind, I’ve known this problem was growing, but I just chose to ignore it. Why do we do things like this? Well, I guess I shouldn’t say, “we.” I’m sure it’s just me. You’re too smart to be this stupid.
I’ve taken to talking to the tree outside my office. He’s a large Taxodium distichum, a bald cypress. We’ve been discussing freedom and motion. He’s been explaining to me that my society, human society, does not afford me the freedom to stay in one place all the time. “You’d be run off by someone,” he says. “Why are you still here? Don’t you have somewhere else to be? Run along.” He has a point, I supposed. “Trees,” he suggests, “are free to remain right here, to put down roots, to truly inhabit a habitat.”
Yesterday he told me about the day he finally grew taller than our office building. “For years I wondered what was on the other side of this building,” he said. “I asked the birds almost everyday, but they never talk back to trees. I’m not sure they can hear us. They’re so weird." I’m learning to read the “facial expressions” of trees as I talk to them more and more. He was smiling as he remembered. “Then one day, finally, my top branch peeked over the edge of the building and saw the roof and the trees and buildings on the other side. It was like my world doubled in size. It was amazing.” Today he’s several yards taller than our office building and he can see the pond and the running trail and the little bridge. “When the wind blows just right I can see the ducks sleeping.”
This body is the one constant in my life, I suppose. Everywhere I go I lug it around with me. When I’m chased off from one place I take it to the next. I suppose I should take better care of it, put down roots in it, plan to stay here for a while.
Hello, friends. I hope you’re taking care of yourself.
Later. Love.
