The Blossom Falls from the Tree
by J.G. Fabiano
Because of my ever-increasing waist line, I have forced myself to walk along Nubble Road which skirts the coastline of York Beach, Maine. This daily exercise ritual has not slowed down my weight gain but it has enlightened me on a subject I hold very dear.
I have a 20 year old daughter who is experiencing a strong feeling of self. In other words, she is rebelling against me and my ideas. I find this situation hard to handle. In fact, if you put all my other frustrations on one side of a scale, this rebellion by my daughter totally out-weighs everything else.
In my walk I observe everything around me including the ocean perpetually hugging the rocks, numerous cottages with their even more numerous, "for sale" signs, and the trees which, in the fall, lose parts of themselves that have taken time and love to produce.
It makes me wonder if they have the same feelings that I am now experiencing. In the spring, the buds on these trees blossom in the assorted colors of a rainbow. The branches, even the trunks, seem to bolster themselves with pride in hopes of showing the entire world the reality of their accomplishments. These same buds hold on to their parent and give the impression that their maker is and always will be their entire reality. A sort of serenity.
The buds grow larger and then change into small yet vigorous young blossoms. They, at first, shy away from the branches of their protector. After time they spring toward the open air which is, of course, their destiny. As more time passes these same blossoms grow larger and appear stronger.
They now openly wave in the ocean's wind with little care that they might fall away from what earlier was their only reality. In fact, they now seem to challenge their parent into believing that they no longer need the support and protection of past times.
Like all parents, the tree holds onto the blossoms with stern support and pleads with them to grow stronger until the time is right to go out on their own and try to survive.
Sometimes I feel that the tree points down toward the wilting buds with left the parent too soon to prove to their buds that their wisdom from age is true. These over-anxious siblings are now either dying or becoming weakened independent plants that are destined to not survive their first inevitable winter.
"Learn from this", my imagination hears the trees scream at their vigorous young in the always present winds of the Nubble. The young buds sway in the same wind as if to show the parent that it is becoming an unnecessary element of their existence.
The long days of summer always blend into the cool times of autumn. The leaves which are abundant during the warmer days begin to lose their color and thin out. The buds become seeds for the future. The proud parents, knowing that their seeds have the strength, vitality, and maybe even the wisdom to survive, show their pride. They show something else. They always show a little bit of sadness.
My daily walks have now evolved into winter excursions. What was once a forest of leaf-filled trees is now a desolate row of empty trunks and bare branches.
Unlike myself, who will produce no more young, the naked trees realize that new buds will once again adorn their branches as soon as spring arrives. As for me, I will keep hold of my blossom until I, like the trees, believe that she is prepared to survive her own future winters.
Jim Fabiano is a free lance writer living in York Beach, Maine