Fronds and Elephants

This morning I awoke to a sky that is cloudy-gray and white. Against this backdrop, through the bedroom window, are the fronds of a palm tree, planted on a whim back when the house was new. The breeze blows and tree moves, imitating a life of movement, the only movement it will ever have. I am reminded of the backdrop in a snow storm - the eye sees nothing but the surrounding gray and white, the falling of the dense and foggy source, and that feeling - that pure sense of solitude, of being apart from the world.

The funny thing, of course, is that solitude is a sense, a perception, a state of mind. I am looking from the window of a second story bedroom, from the warmth and comfort of bed, a night of dreams, and the simple pleasure of a good book. It is a book from which I look up often because it makes me think. I glance outside by pulling the paper-thin shade towards me and I ponder. I think about the book and I think about the tree and then I read.

That palm tree reminds me of a story about a blind man and an elephant. There are other versions; one that comes to mind is a story in a well-loved basal reader about seven blind mice. The moral, which resonates in science, literature, the arts, and just life in general, is that you have to know when to get in really close and when to take a step (or 2 or 3) backwards - to get the big picture. From the window, what I see of the tree is melancholy and beautiful. The fronds are a dark green, with ribbon-like tendrils that move with the breeze like the fingers of a dancer - not separate from the hand, but with their own movement. I think about getting my camera. I am framing a shot. There is no light for this picture but it is a photograph nonetheless. Like most photographers, I am not so much seeing the dulled contrast of the green fronds and the gray and white surround, I am trying to capture an experience.

But from the ground, this tree is a tall, thick trunk that grows straight up. Dead fronds are pressed downward against the upper reaches of its trunk, dying fronds are beginning to lay back, away from the top, away from the sun, giving up green and succumbing to the inevitable process of death, sacrificing itself so that other, newer fronds can grow. The tree is not ugly - it is rather pretty. From the sidewalk, it is impressive in size and height. But the beauty of its canopy does not resonate on the ground. It is a suburban palm tree, planted two decades ago. It looked interesting as a young tree. It lacked the harshness of the mature tree's trunk. The fronds were small, green, and looked nice in the hunter green of the nursery's plastic pot.

From the window, on this morning of rain and wind, the upper reaches of the tree engage me as I think about what I am reading and pondering meaning. Surely my mind, always active to the point of insomnia and strange, inter-connected dreams, is seeking meaning. There is an allegory here, a story. What is it? The elephant? We can't change stories that belong to other people. We can only imagine the elephant walking away, leaving a befuddled blind man or seven mice pondering what the animal's presence meant. The tree? It isn't in a story. But it cannot walk away or leave anyone befuddled or amazed. It just moves in the breeze.