I’m sitting on a small wooden deck, plastic chair well padded with a wool blanket. Comfortable despite the temperature. I’m looking at trees dancing in wind and thinking how different they are, birch, balsam, maple, spruce, tamarack, alder, beech, and yet the same, needing water, light, nourishment. Kinda like us. Each of us different yet the same. What I love about the dancing is that every one of them has their own way of moving depending on variety, age and size, its location relative to other trees. Every nuance in wind direction, no matter how brief or tiny the increment, registers in their branches, the same effect but differently for each. The same but different. And how it’s this difference that makes the whole thing work. If they all leaned the same way, to the same degree, in the same moment, the forest would fall over. It’s the variation of sway that gives strength to the whole. Like us I’m thinking. Not so different from us. More same than different.

♣

♣

♣