When I was very young, I spent a great deal of my time in the woods. There was a fairly large wooded area to the west, and although my family did not own it, we were always welcome to visit and we came to think of it as our own. It was during this formative period in my life that I gained a singular appreciation of the treasures that the woods offered.
Now, I have my own woods. It was gained through a process that involved expense, decision (I almost had another woods), and effort. When I first acquired these woods, they needed some work. There were broken trees, weeds, and undergrowth that distracted from the beauty that my mind’s eye saw. Through a lot of effort and the help of some people who knew how to safely do the things that I would have hurt myself trying, I started to achieve the vision that I held for my woods.
Taking small steps at a time, the weeds were pushed back, the undergrowth at the edges yielded to some measure of control. I tried to trim some of the dead wood that I could reach. I cut up the excess wood and stacked it for future use. I thought that I could continue this process each year and that slowly the whole woods would become what I had imagined.
There have been times of great adversity that would have tried to destroy my woods. The winds of great storms have hurt the trees. The weight of accumulated ice has threatened to bring them to the ground. The woods have taken on a beaten look that was not what I had expected when I first imagined its future appearance.
There is not so much foliage left at the top, now. Time and pressure have taken their toll. The ground beneath is littered with branches that once help gather energy for the trees. Some trees are leaning so far that they can never recover.
It’s okay, though. The woods are still beautiful. I was wrong. I thought that I was the sculptor. In reality I was only one of many sculptors. As I look at these woods in the coming years, I will see them in many different conditions; sometimes beaten, sometimes groomed. Their beauty will always be there. Even if the relentless onslaught of time reduces them to nothing but broken stumps, I will clean up the brush and look upon my stumps with appreciation, and with the knowledge that a beautiful expanse of well groomed grass and lakes lie just beyond.
