Perseverance

I am privileged to have been able to travel with Tammy to some interesting places and I am still able to revisit some of those places with the pictures we took while we were there.  Some of the photos that mean the most to me rotate as the background images on my computer.  There are sunset pictures, flower pictures, and other neat images of the farm as well as photos of waterfalls, waves and trees.

Tree at Holman Vista in Oregon

This image was the first one selected by my computer on the morning that I wrote this blog post.  I don't know if it is a particularly good photograph based on artistic criteria, but I like it - and that's really all that matters.  It is my computer, after all.

When I see this photo I can feel myself being transported back to the moment I hit the button to preserve the image I was seeing.  The temperature was 47 degrees Fahrenheit. Tammy and I now refer to that temperature as "Oregon" since that was roughly what it was during most of our outdoor exploits while we were there.  It was cloudy most of the time with the threat of impending rain (unless it was actively raining).  

There was a strong wind at Holman Vista, where this tree was living its life.  The wind off of the Pacific was a regular occurrence and most of the older trees had shapes similar to this one - with the branches and limbs growing away from that wind.  The conditions that this tree existed in discouraged tree growth that went into the wind and it was obvious that many branches on the west-facing side had been pruned over time.  

Yet, this tree continued to live, grow - and maybe even thrive - in a difficult situation.  Clearly, this is not the shape it would have had if its life were less difficult. But, this is the shape of success.  For this tree.  In this place.

If this tree hadn't been shaped the way it was, I doubt I would have decided to take this particular photograph.  I find the tree and this image to be attractive, yet somehow bittersweet.  It is reassuring and disconcerting at the same time.  This tree encourages me and discourages me.  It teaches me the values of perseverance in the face of adversity. 

And it reminds me that we are each who we are, in part because we have persevered through the challenges our own lives have brought us.