Most of the pine cones have disappeared from the white pine by now. Some fell where we could reach them, and in other years the girls and I might have gathered them for fire starters or painted them into little flowers. But the enormous ones at the very top are still there, hanging on as if the tree has plans of its own.
I have been watching them all season. They are big enough to notice from the patio, dark against the soft green needles and the gray September sky. Every once in a while I catch myself thinking about what we could make with them if they ever came down.
Then Hadley reminded me of something we apparently already know around here.
“We let it be a tree, just like we let the goose be a goose.”
And really, there isn’t much more that needs to be said.
There is such a human tendency to see something beautiful and immediately imagine what we might do with it. Collect it. Paint it. Turn it into something useful. Bring it inside and make it ours for a while.
But sometimes the beautiful thing is already doing exactly what it is supposed to do.
The pine cones do not need to become flowers this year. They do not need to help start a fire. They can simply hang high in the white pine for as long as the tree decides to keep them there.
Maybe eventually the wind will loosen them. Maybe a squirrel will find them first. Maybe one morning we will walk outside and discover that the tree has finally let go.
Until then, they belong exactly where they are.
It turns out the puddle has been teaching us this lesson for months. Let the goose be a goose. Let the spider build her web. Let the heron decide when to visit. Let the seasons arrive in their own time.
And apparently, let the tree be a tree.
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