Time & Empathy

Last Sunday I was dead set on cleaning our yard for fall. With the past year being everything about our wedding, it was refreshing to focus on the leaf piles, trimming the bushes, picking up soggy pumpkins.

Soggy pumpkins: compost pile.
Leaf piles: fire pit.

Branches from spring, a lone leaf bag that hasn't moved for months, and beer boxes from summer nights also went into the fire. Like a period at the end of the sentence that makes room for the next thought to solidify, this Sunday bonfire was releasing the past to make room for us and our new dreams.

It was clarity, and it was cleansing.

Then Monday rolled around. Joel and I came home to our birch tree in the front yard cut into tiny pieces, detached from the stump that used to hold it all together. Its branches protected this little Moon Lodge for the last two years, always welcoming us back home after a long day. Now the spot where it stood tall is barren. Empty. Exposed.

I look out the back window and see some of the remnants from our poor birch in a huge pile near our fire pit and think, how funny life is. You cleanse, you find clarity, and the next moment you're wondering how to save your world from destruction. How to clean up the mess without being wasteful. How to get rid of your piles in a conscious way. The only constant I have found in this cycle of clarity and chaos?

Time. Empathy.

Fortunately, you all responded to save our fallen birch after I sent out this PSA.

Some of the uses so far:

• decor for a first-born's nursery

• fireplace decoration

• centerpieces for a work holiday party

Woohoo! Thank you for saving our birch and letting her live on for your special events and homes.