The Tree

It stands alone, like a dedicated sentinel overlooking vast territory, motionless in its duty. Although it makes no noise in an attempt to communicate, it somehow reaches out and draws me near. It offers peace, solitude and deep reflection. It's my spot. 

Others have a similar area.  An aging recliner with smooshed cushions, a wooden adirondack chair with chipped paint or a beat up lawn chair with sagging web straps. Mine happens to be a tree.

It's a ponderosa pine tree high on a mountain side that offers huge views over the front range.  To the north, are the signature Flatiron mountains of Boulder. Directly east of them, a small group of windmills rotate to generate electricity. If the wind blows north, they rotate clockwise and counterclockwise if the wind blows south. The table top mesas of Golden look so flat, like the plateaus were topped with a gigantic knife swipe from nature. Denver's skyline is due east with the tops of the skyscrapers stretching towards the horizon. Kansas and the Great Plains are out in the distance that once were black with millions of buffalo. Industrial stacks belching vertical plumes of who-knows-what stand out like old feathered quill pens in a pencil cup. To the south, on clear days, Pikes Peak stands proud above Colorado Springs and looks so monumental when snow capped. Down below, roadways snake in every direction with cars appearing like masses of tiny ants cruisng along in single file lines.

Denver's lights from the tree

I can do without the masses of people and the urban sprawl which are especially highlighted at night while leaning against my tree. On night runs, I click off my headlamp for a quick breather and make time to just "be."  Headlights race on the roads and city lights flicker in the distance. It's disgusting when I concentrate on the immense sea of lights spread everywhere in front of me. I question if every single bulb that is glowing brightly is truly necessary?  I tell myself most could be turned off and not really be missed.  What a waste.

I look up and notice the sparkling diamonds in the night sky.  Orion, the big dipper and the north star are punctuated with their signature bright stars. Too bad for all the light pollution, otherwise I could follow the little dipper's handle originating with the north star and see it, too, up in the sky with the other constellations.  The cresent moon is simply a bright fingernail clipping hanging in the air, partially masked by a thin wisp of a cloud that appears translucent being backlit by the moon. What wonder outer space creates. If our sun is simply a star, then some of the millions of stars up in the sky can surely serve as a sun to other planets similar to earth that we simply haven't discovered since they're so unbelievably far away?

The throaty power of distant train locomotives is heard, and felt with the deep vibrations they generate while pulling such long and heavy loads.  I cannot comprehend how steel wheels on steel tracks can possibly get the sheer mass of those mile long coal trains even started in motion. I love the sound of night trains, they stir memories. I enjoy feeling the power of the locomotives resonating through my body and listening to the telltale whistle/horn blasting through the still night air.

My tree quietly overlooks saplings that were beat up by elk thrashing velvet off their antlers. These same sweaty bulls later in the fall were bugling below the tree while challenging one another to fight. Deer oftentimes bed down nearby, chewing their cuds, and squirrels frequently are noticed darting in branches and dropping pine cones that are later gathered and stored.

Thin clouds feathered across the blue sky forecast an approaching storm. Rains have been enjoyed at the tree. Pounding rain storms have drenched while the pitter-patter of soft raindrops on my visor are also welcomed, especially when thunder rolls along the mountain, hugging the ground, as it echoes up the canyons. Snowfalls are always cherished. From the tree, it's like the fresh white blanket across the city briefly purifies the ugliness. Footfalls in the fresh snow are silenced and new tracks are questioned about the track layer's activity.

The snowflakes themselves stir pure wonderment. The enormity of tiny snowflakes it must take to simply make an inch of fluffy powder is mindblowing. Now multiply that incredible number to cover all snowdepths around the world...it's momumental. And the vastness is even more unreal when scientists claim no two snowflakes are exactly alike. That simply seems too outrageaous to be true.  Glad I have my tree to lean against to mull over such miracles in nature.

Thoughts about the past, of the future, are visited at the tree. Life's troubles are brought into perspective there as well. Some are stupidly blown out of proportion and, thanks to the tree, they become trivial...not worth the effort when put in perspective relative to the grand scheme of life.  Smiling thoughts are blessed by the tree. Some involve family or friends and some involve unique experiences absent of people. 

I love my tree. It's part of a very healthy diet.