NOVEMBER 2, 2022 – Today while bud-capping white pine trees in the “tree garden,” I spotted a four-year old seedling nestled up against an old, pin oak tree. The red leaves of a raspberry plant, backlit by Apollo’s chariot, dangled over the pine. A nice picture, I thought. Just as I reached for my iPhone, it rang. The caller was a favorite client of mine; a banker with whom I’ve worked for over 20 years.
He had a referral—a highly regarded customer of his—but wanted to know if I’d be available to handle the deal. “Of course!” I said but added that at the moment I was in the “finest office in the world,” leaning against an old oak tree with a great view of a grand lake. As if on cue, an eagle glided over the treetops along a lower elevation from where I stood. “Can’t beat where I am right now,” I said.
When the call ended minutes later, the dangling red leaves of the raspberry plant were no longer backlit—a reminder that the earth, like a huge timepiece, is spinning at a velocity of 1,000 MPH (even on a calm day). After capping a few surrounding trees, however, I noticed that the sun had crept around the other side of the oak, backlighting the raspberry leaves from a different angle. Still a decent photo op, I thought, as I pulled out my ever so smart phone to capture the fleeting scene.
Except for a few biz calls—including one with the referral—I luxuriated in my work in the woods, bending knees over 100 times to protect that many more pine from the deer. My project seemed absurd, given the thousands of “volunteer” seedlings/saplings that beckoned. Yet, whenever I worried that the only way to stop my ostensible OCD was to . . . stop . . . I’d encounter a white pine that hadn’t been capped in the past and consequently, had been disfigured by browsing deer. So I continued my work.
Later in the afternoon a strong southerly breeze arose off the lake. The susurration of tall, shoreline pine sounded like the ocean inside the conch shell from a family vacation when I was five. Periodically after our return home, my sisters and I would take turns holding the shell to an ear and hear the steady roar of the sea. When my turn came, I’d close my eyes and imagine that I was standing on the white sand beach in Destin, Florida, watching (and hearing) the breakers land and wash over my feet. Today, I faced the sunshine in the breeze off Grindstone Lake, closed my eyes and imagined that I was standing . . . exactly where I was.
And standing where I was, there in the tree garden, I felt another wave of indescribable happiness and gratitude; gratification that 10 months after my diagnosis and 10 weeks and a day after my stem cell transplant, I’d been granted this day in this place. However long I’m allowed to walk upon this planet, every moment of my presence here—and in all other places where and when I find myself—is a precious gift.
This perspective is the supreme reward of an eventful year. So often in the past I’d think naively that fulfillment would be found in a time and place where I wasn’t—skiing, hiking, exploring, visiting with family or friends, partaking in a thousand other good things in life somewhere and sometime other than where I was at the moment. Now I’ve found fulfillment of a sort I couldn’t have understood until all my dreams were in jeopardy. I’ve found fulfillment in life itself, and nowhere is life more teaming, resilient, compelling than in nature’s garden, lit by the sun and guarded by the stars.
Under the stars is where I stood just before writing this post. In countless multitude and unimaginable distances from us—and from each other—those celestial lights invigorate the mind by delighting it, renew the heart by expanding it, and reveal the soul unto itself . . . by stirring it.
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
1 Comment
Just beautiful. Thank you.
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