I almost came to tears holding the gaze of a giant beech tree the other day. It was midday, clear skies, Emma and I and the golden doodle were out for a walk to the river. It was cold but comfortable. We were talking. My gaze was inward, clutching at my thoughts.
Emma and the doodle went across the street to deposit a bag of dog s**t in the trash, so I paused for a moment. When I pause, sometimes I remember to look around. This was one of those times. I looked around, and caught on the largest wild being in sight: A century old beech tree in the lot of a schoolyard.
Old trees of any sort—whether gnarly, sprawling, or tall—have always made me emotional. This was that, but also beyond that. In a brief and subtle encounter with the beech tree I let my thoughts go and for a moment I felt the fullness of the world around me.
I was talking with a friend the other day. She’s going through a tough thing with her family, and she’s feeling like she can’t fix it, because, well, she can’t fix it. She’s been holding it together really well, but one evening earlier in the week, she told me, she couldn’t keep holding it together. The flood of feelings broke through. She lost her composure.
In her words, she said: “I just had an unfortunate moment of insanity.”
I laughed. We were at the stage in our conversation where it was possible to laugh with each other, where neither of us where taking ourselves too seriously. Which is an important stage in a conversation to be at if you are going to laugh at an otherwise serious thing that someone shares with you.
I laughed and I said, “Everything you’re feeling makes so much sense, and maybe feeling it that strongly, given the circumstances, was actually one of the more sane things that you’ve felt.”
And there it is.
We’re holding our composure or clutching our thoughts, going through our day innocent to the fact that life is forcefully flowing through the earth beneath us and stretching out into the sky above us. Then something shifts. Something catches us unguarded and gaping. Or something releases in us. In wonder, awe, or confusion—for whatever reason—we surrender ourselves to the lunacy of the unbound moment. We let ourselves feel what we feel with complete precision.
It would be too much to maneuver through each day with constant precision. But may we all, from time to time, be blessed with such subtle moments of temporary sanity.
