The Trees Held Both Without Argument

Notes From the Hollow Bone | Entry Fifty-Three

This morning the rain and sunlight could not seem to agree on who belonged here.

The storm had rolled through not long before. The leaves were still wet. The clouds had not fully departed. Yet shafts of sunlight pierced through the canopy as though they had every right to be there.

Rain.

Light.

Shadow.

Brilliance.

Each taking its turn.

Each refusing to surrender completely to the other.

And the trees held both without argument.

I sat beneath them for a while and watched the exchange.

Not a battle.

Not a contest.

A conversation.

One moment the woods darkened beneath gathering clouds.

The next, sunlight spilled through the branches and transformed every droplet into glass.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

The forest seemed entirely unbothered by the arrangement.

No leaf demanded permanent sunshine.

No branch mourned the passing storm.

No tree insisted that only one thing could be true.

The rain was welcome.

The light was welcome.

Both belonged.

And sitting there, I found myself wondering how much of human suffering comes from demanding that life choose.

We want certainty without mystery.

Joy without sorrow.

Love without vulnerability.

Sunlight without storms.

We spend so much energy arguing with reality.

Insisting that one experience cancel another.

As though peace will arrive when only the things we prefer remain.

But the trees seemed to know something different.

They stood in the middle of contradiction without distress.

Holding the rain.

Receiving the light.

Allowing both.

Perhaps peace is not found when one thing wins.

Perhaps peace is found when we stop insisting that it must.

The world continued turning while I sat there beneath the canopy.

Emails waited.

Tasks waited.

The endless list of things that always seem to need doing waited.

And for a few quiet minutes, I did too.

I waited with the trees.

I waited with the rain.

I waited with the light.

And in their company, I remembered something I am forever forgetting:

Life is not asking me to rush past these moments.

Life is asking me to notice them.

To look up.

To breathe deeply.

To stand still long enough to witness the conversation between storm and sunlight.

To remember that both belong.

Perhaps that is why the trees seemed so peaceful.

Not because they had escaped the weather.

Because they had learned how to hold it.

With Grace & Ink,

–Mai