A tree falls in London

The many stages of life
London, ON
April 2020
This photo originally shared on Instagram

Walk the same streets enough times and eventually you start to notice little things. And not-so-little ones, too.

Like when a tree that's been there forever no longer is.

I hovered over what remained of a once massive shade tree and tried to count the rings in the sawed-off stump while the dog quietly sniffed the grass nearby.

I stopped counting at 30, long enough for most folks around here to have never remembered a time before it was planted.

I thought about perspective: A seeming-eternity for mere mortals, a blink of a celestial eye for the planet.

Doesn't make it any less sad a loss for the day-to-day lives of the people who call this place home. But at the very least it reinforces the continuity of a cycle that began long before we were here, and will still be evolving long after we're gone.

In the meantime, there are plenty of other trees in the neighborhood. And lots of spots for new ones to be planted.

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