People assumed that Big Topics at Midnight would want to have her picture taken beside an exotic umbrella drink with the Hawaiian ocean in the background. That may still happen, but I soon discovered that she was much more interested in being photographed while leaning against trees.
Like Mother, like daughter.
Neither one of us is a tree hugger. We are tree leaners. Energy begins to flow when the back of our hearts connects with these magnificent creations with their roots deep into the ground and branches that reach for the heavens.
She and I have another connection to trees: our profound gratitude for the paper that comes from the gift of a tree’s body. We know that some prefer technology and pontificate on the ecological benefits of reading things on computers and “printing” books on the screen. The two of us don’t argue with the logic, but little compares with the sensuous feel of a book with paper pages—a gift from the heartwood.
Since I often tired of sitting endless hours at a computer screen, editing and playing with her when she was a wee book-in-process, the stages of her gestation were printed on page after page for me to edit. I bet Big Topics at Midnight is grateful that I continued to work on her story so she wasn’t presented to the world in any of the multiple drafts that were left behind…
Leaning is our way of saying Thank You to the trees around us, for their beauty when standing firmly planted in the Earth and their beauty as a piece of paper.
