Marking Time

Exploring with the dog yesterday, we found this stump, recently washed downstream in turbulent snow melt and beached. After a cursory sniff, she was willing to continue our search for the living.

I took more of an interest in it than she did, counting the growth rings backward in time to about 1898, until obfuscated by kerf and drying checks.

As a means of providing context, I drove my knife point into the wood, marking birth dates. Tricia is closest to the bark (most recently born), preceded by me, my father, and Nan (near the center) born in 1908.

Lifetimes, as measured by tree growth.

To us, immersed in daily existence, time moves slowly...because new experiences require decision-making for survival...because we are adapted to dwell in the moment. We are a lifetime of moments, fed by anticipation and fading into memory.

Thing is, it does not take very long to get from here to there...