What The Old Tree Said

this post belongs to the Festival of the Trees #62: "Lessons We Have Learned From Trees", hosted by Kate Natick of Beyond the Brambles.



Tuesday, 3 September, Romanche Valley

What The Old Tree Said

There is an old tree standing beside the road that runs through this valley, it’s just standing there, not able to move, locked to its place with its roots. as I cycled past it, I thought how sad it must be to grow old near a road like this, to see all the others travelling past you, day in and day out, while you aren’t able to move, while the only thing you can do is to waive your twigs in the wind.

But the tree smiled at me without any trace of jealousy, and said: “Moving and travelling ain’t the same thing, you know. It’s your body that does the moving, but it’s your soul that does the travelling. That’s why it is possible to move for hours without travelling an inch, just as it is possible to travel beyond the horizon without moving a foot.”

I don’t know if that’s true, but it somehow sounded right to me, even so it’s just what an old tree said.

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the photo & story is from: Road Diary South France, 2002
more trees in this blog: virtual notes / trees