Ginkgo Dreams - Celebrating Ginkgo

This morning you find yourself hugging a tree: it’s your front yard gingko, bare-leafed and rough, the trunk just narrow enough to get your arms around. It’s one of those moments when people and trees come together, when the mind empties out like spilled milk and you are that tree; and when the UPS man climbs out of his truck, surprised to see you hugging a tree but too polite to ask why and hands over a package to sign for, you think: Who is this woman—and isn’t it time to get to know her? And when the neighbor who just moved in next door with six cats and an old red pickup comes jogging down the road, you holler, Kettle’s on! C’mon in. And though her eyes widen to see you stroking the bark of the gingko—she turns and trots up your walk. And you know this is exactly what you were longing for when you first embraced that tree: a cup of green tea and a neighbor who looks bewitching today in her purple cape, her tall rubber boots and a rusty frizz of hair that sticks straight up like an antenna, like a genie dropped in from some distant star and in your own front yard.

by Nancy Means Wright.

Posted by Kelly