Trees of Life: Sycamore

The Sycamores stood straight, rooted along both shores of the creek that ran on the other side of the playground in Sycamore Gardens, the neighborhood we moved to as a family in 1965. My brother and I climbed them, dangled and swung through endless afternoons of play under the shade of these giants. We cursed the dried and brittle seed balls that remained in summer as they pricked our bare feet when chasing one another down well-worn paths. In the winter those same seed balls conspicuously hung like tiny pompoms from the massive spreading crown.

Within the landscapes that have influenced me, the stately Sycamore tree resonates profoundly, strong and tall, protective, adaptive to a multitude of environs and conditions. Its shedding bark, exposing vulnerabilities, gnarled histories, blending whorls of endurance adjacent to tender new growth. It sloughs its skin, continually expanding, growing, making space and room for changing circumstances. The bark a metaphor for things experienced in the past but only understood in the present.