A tree is just a tree.

There can be traces of the places I've been dwelling in me where I am now and there can be traces of me in the places where I am not. Yet, I am learning that I cannot coexist in two places at once, nor can I be the same person to those two places no matter how hard I try. The person that I was growing up will never be known by the people who surround me now. And the person I am now will never be fully understood by the bodies who knew me first. The thought, or more so the act of changing and growing is the feeling of a staggering and muddled certainty. It's like that saying, If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, did it really fall? Maybe that's not what this quote means at all. Even still, to me it does.

Many people will see this tree, become acquainted with it. It will be the break in their walk or the mid mile marker reminding them they are almost done. Many will stroll past, laugh under, climb through, and lean against this robust natural beauty. But what happens when the tree no longer fits in its designated plot of land? When its roots start tripping people on their run or when it starts stealing water from the flowers. If the tree is triumphantly uprooted, but no one sees or no one bird is startled by it, was the fall as significant as it seemed? Will the ones who have known this tree be okay? Will this tree be a missing piece for them? Yes, they will and maybe it will. But they will continue. They will find new mile markers and rest stops.

So how will the people here in the now know, if in the moment, I am detrimental? Will there be a warning to them or will I be abrupt? How will the people there, from then, know that I am in fact still shaky, but standing now with wobbly knees? The desire to be known and studied, paired with the constant urge to run and the fear of not ever being understood is the perfect conundrum.

My steps felt mighty there. Like I could shake the ground with every leap, all in faith, that I took. The familiarity that encompassed me made it easy to confuse comfort with contentment. The porch felt like it had a barrier between the outside world and the white rockers that are still placed in the center of it, framed by 150 year old windows. It’s funny how easy it is to confuse security with saftey. The colors that I see surrounding 1506 Park are that of forest green, diluted shades of blue, and a rainbow of neutrals. The routines there felt like sacred rituals. They can be completed and practiced anywhere my feet are planted, but the breaking of bread always feels different when not done in a sanctuary.

I think the reason we are compelled to complete a routine is that the same feeling is expected to come with it everytime, At least the feeling that had come with it before. The expected outcome is this- I will feel complete, safe, familiar, and rightly placed. The problem is this; a routine won't feel the same when the routine is a noun, not a verb. When the routine is a place or person or thing- you can't replicate that to its entirety. Nor can a person, place, or thing ever really become a ritual or routine. People are ever changing. You, me, them. Places are ever changing. That feeling is a moment. At least that is what I am rationalizing.

This deep rooted feeling we receive and long for from others is intoxicating. It doesn't have to be a lover, simply a friend will do. Even more, a complete stranger who maintains eye contact for a second longer than comfort lasts can leave us questioning our incorruptibility and notability. So, I'll call up the one who makes me feel all the things that left me the moment I am no longer in control of how someone else perceives me. my existence. They will tell me the things I need to hear in order to be the same as I was yesterday. Tomorrow though- I will change in another way I won't notice until my brain is rewired and reshaped and I have grown into another version of myself.

A tree will always be recognized as something else to many different beings. To a bird, a home. To a cold body, fire wood. To the world, another thing in the way of the perfect town home. To the artist, a new project. To a weary body after a long day's labor, a place of shade and shelter. To a pair of freshly dried hands, a piece of trash. To our lungs, a breath of fresh air. To a child, the last place of residing before the broken wrist. Maybe the tree was uprooted and simply planted somewhere new.

A tree is just a tree until it isn’t.