Constant Change

I moved into my house 1n 1996 and found a small marsh area not far from home.  The Two dead snags were somehow symbols of steadinessin a changing world to me.  When the sky was blue or foggy, and when the marsh was dry or flooded, in spring and summer and brutal winter those two trees looked unchanged and I often stopped to stare at them and remember to breathe, in my own hectic life where Fathers grew sick with cancer, and babies grew into silent teenagers or snuck out and vanished overnight.

I could find signs of life everywhere, sometimes black tailed deer or great blue herons or loons, sometimes just fat spiders on dew covered webs.

The salty brine of the marsh was where two ecosystems collided to form a third, the fresh water creek, hitting a slough that formed a lake that breached into the Pacific

Whenever one part of life threatened to take over another, I would remember the fragile balance of the many plants and animals in this little slice of the world, and find my own balance once again.

Then the tall snag, snapped off, and left only a stump.  I actually mourned that dead tree.  Bur it was still beautiful there and I grew used to the sight of only one tall, almost winged sentinel standing with its much shortened companion.

But this week, when my Baby graduated from High School, and one of the students at the middle school where I was teaching was murdered, I came back to see for myself that there was some stability in the old dead tree.  But it was gone.and so I have to find another strong, source of support and comfort, or perhaps learn to bend and flow like the grasses and the stream that remain.