Stories That Are Already Here

Our favorite walking path brings us through the water works less than a mile from home.

At the entrance stands this giant Tulip Tree. I don’t know its exact age, but some minor research suggests it could be between 125 and 175 years old. Perhaps even older.

Up until a few years ago, I had never even heard of a Tulip Tree.  Not so unusual for me, I tend to describe plants, flowers, and trees by their size and color rather than their actual names.

The fact that I wasn’t paying attention doesn’t mean they aren’t connected to an incredible story. Since then, I’ve learned there are a couple of tulip trees on the grounds of the museum and gardens where I work during the summer months.

But this particular tree is different.

It’s enormous.

The trunk twists upward in a way that suggests a complicated history from long ago. I have no specific knowledge of what happened to it, but just looking at it brings thoughts of what it may have witnessed through the years. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to imagine that it has been standing here for well over a century.

Further down the road sits an old pump station that is still in use today. Across the street, Long Pond stretches toward the horizon. When the nights are right, it becomes the setting for some pretty remarkable sunsets.

What amazes me is how easily I walked past all of it.

Not just the tree, but the entire story.

A long history laced with the quiet presence of things that have been here all along.

For years, I passed this exact spot without giving much of it a second thought. Almost daily, I watch other people walk past it, and sometimes directly beneath it, with the same absent-mindedness.

Then one spring day, when the blooms were out, we stopped and looked up.

There they were. Tulip-shaped flowers tucked high into the canopy, quietly hiding in plain sight.

Since then, the tree has become much more than just a tree. It has become a reminder.

A reminder that the world is full of stories waiting to be noticed. Most of them will never announce themselves. They stand quietly at the edge of a road. They hide in plain sight. They peek down from above eye level, waiting patiently for someone to become curious enough to look.

Maybe this is one of the gifts that comes with getting a little older.

Not that I am discovering new places.

Only that I am beginning to see more deeply into the places that have always been here.

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Talk soon…

G