I wish to stare at the trees, to lose myself in their still majesty, to feel the slow unfolding of their patience, their ancient knowing. To rest beneath their branches and let the world’s noise dissolve into the sustenance of leaves. But life is not giving me that stillness right now. Instead, it is a whirlwind; fast, chaotic, abundant in demands and distractions. I find myself pulled in so many directions, scattered like seeds on the wind, unable to settle into the calm I crave.
There is exhaustion in this scattering. A deep, bone-heavy kind of tiredness that seeps into my words and blurs their edges. My hands move, but the heart behind them sometimes feels heavy, like it’s carrying the weight of too many moments at once. Yet even in this weariness, there is a strange gratitude; a soft recognition of the life I am living, even if it is messy, even if it pulls me from the trees I long to watch.
I am learning that presence is not only found in stillness. Sometimes it is found in the storm; in the spinning, in the scattering. Even when I cannot rest beneath branches, I am still rooted somewhere deep inside. I carry the trees within me, their steadiness, their strength, their enduring resilience. And so, even when life demands I be everywhere at once, I am still here. I am still writing. Still offering what I can, even if it feels fractured.
This balance between longing and obligation, between presence and scattering, is where I live now. Tired but grateful. Dispersed but holding on. Searching for calm in the chaos and finding, sometimes, that it already lives inside me. And if I cannot be with the trees, I will become like them, slowly, steadily growing in unseen ways. Letting the wind shape me, but not uproot me. Letting life pull me, but not lose me.