DEVOLVING BRISTLECONE PINE
This week, I’m ruminating about trees, straight ones, tall ones, skinny ones, and crooked ones. When I was a child and first learned about evolution, I wondered what humans would look like millions of years down the road, and decided people would look a lot like trees. My reasoning at the time was that people would need to use their limbs less and less and locomotion wouldn’t be necessary since machines and robots would cater to our every whim. Back then, I thought I’d like to evolve into a redwood or sequoia tree. Something mighty, tall, and strong. However, over the years, as my appreciation for understatement and subtlety has increased, I have discovered my aversion for showiness is reflected in my choice of tree and have settled on the bristlecone pine. What an amazing tree!
The bristlecone pine is native to Utah and other Great Basin states and is a shining example of survival in harsh conditions. This evergreen grows where other trees don’t. The twisted, gnarled shape of the tree is due to its tenacity against wind, snow, sun, rain, and fire. Trials literally shape its trunk and limbs into unique, and at times, grotesque silhouettes; slowly changing, ever adapting to the process of living. During extreme times there is no perceptible growth, but these trees can live over 4,000 years, even when almost all of its outer protective layer of bark is gone. Age hones exposed wood into sculpted masterpieces of resilience and beauty.
I’m no bristlecone pine, but I’d like to think that aging with its inherent wrinkles, crevices, and creases makes us more interesting and beautiful, not less. Even with my misshapen, grotesque, Hitchcockian figure, I’m much more comfortable in my skin now that I’m in my fifties than I was a quarter-century ago. Each twist, rough edge, awkward point, foible, and embarrassing angle is fodder for angst or humor. Hopefully I can cling to the harsh ground of comedy and keep growing. However, unlike the bristlecone pine, I don’t have millennia to hone my craft. Realistically, I only have a couple of productive decades left and I intend to make the most of them, even as I lose my bark.
~ Emery Lamb
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