Let It Be

If in the Fall the trees get to let go of a whole year of hard thinking, why can't we erase just as much.

Chris Bursk
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One thing I've noticed about trees is that once they let go of a leaf or a branch it is no longer of any interest to them what happens to it. If it falls to the ground and remains under the shade of the tree, fine, if it is blown away by the wind, so much the better.

One day I was standing by a fence when a large branch came crashing down in front of me from a nearby tree. It seem like such an apocalyptic event I wondered why there wasn't some follow up to it. But all I observed was that once the tree let go of the branch it was turned over to the law of gravity which brought it to the ground. The tree simply let go, it didn't throw the branch to the ground. The only result is that some groundskeeper would soon come and gather it up. or else it would slowly degrade into the earth.

I sometimes ponder what became of the artifacts, the branches of my life that I have had to let go of, for one reason or another. The places, dwellings, neighbors, books, scenes and sights, where are they now, who's lliving there, who has my old phone numbers, who has my books and do they love them as much as I did.

Perhaps the tree did not want to let go of the branch. It had been a part of the tree for perhaps a hundred years. But it was time to let go of it for the health of the tree. So was it healthy for me to need to lose the people and things I thought I cherished? I am a human being so, of course, I cared about them. I was unhappy about being forced to move and lose things, but like a friend who recently lost everything she had in a fire, I started over.

Life is never the same when you start over. You can never completely recreate the life you had. It's a new life and you are a different person. Watching the branch fall in front of me taught me that. I never wanted a vagabond life, but by the time I was a teenager I knew that is what I had and was going to have. Adjustments are continuous. All the physical force and will power in the world is not going to open a door to let you out that refuses to open. The exit is somewhere else.

Now that i have once again been deprived by the irresponsible Microsoft system of all of my Word files, the stories I was working on, the two years of Vagabond Journey archives, the Autumn Question and the answers, the copious notes I've made, the links to various important places, even if I can get the files to open I am inclined to delete the whole thing and let it fall to the ground for someone to come and gather up or else to slowly rot.

I would find some more reliable way of preserving what can be preserved and think not of the many hours I spent researching and finding the artifacts of my thoughts and studies.

DB - The Vagabond
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Weekend quiz, answer the following clues. It's easy

Comet's driver (5)
Headless egos are helpers (5)
Precipitation sound to gentle creatures prancing (8)
Sooty entrance for bag man (7)
Herb's digit up above (9)
Receptacle for feet hanging (8)
Charles' festival song (1, 9, 5)

DB
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