"I think that I shall never see.."

The neighbors across the street are having a tree removed. I'm sitting here blogging on my front steps, sipping my green caffienated 7up that matches my hair color du jour and watching four guys tackle one tree. I had no idea how intricate the work was -- one guy up in the tree, tying the anchor line into place, then making his cut and carefully lowering the errant branch to his colleagues below who rapidly convert it to wood chips. Eventually he gets down to the bare trunk, which they lower and cut into manageable chunks of wood indistinguishable from the ones I used to spend hours hauling as a child to keep the fireplace stocked and provide heat for our family.

The workmen have obviously done this many times before. Each man knows just where to be when, how to move, what needs to be done next. It's like a dance, choreographed through daily practice to the point where everyone moves smoothly in time with each other. It's actually quite beautiful.

The tree comes down. The neighbors' yard takes on a different character -- a stump the only remnant of the shade that used to be the norm. But the buzz of chainsaw and wood chipper has absolutely zero impact on the birdsong that twitters in my ears as it always has. Life as we know it goes on, sans shade, sans tree.

I have a lot of blogs coming. My whiteboard is getting messy with the list of topics I've been ruminating on that should manifest here in the next week or so. I hope you're all being blessed by the moments of your lives, the endings and beginnings and goings on that flow in and out and around each of us as we journey together. It's been quiet here in blogland lately, but I've been looking in on you all -- thinking about you and praying for you. I'll try and make this a quiet spot to pause and rest and read. Over the Rhine, one of my favorite bands, calls their discussion board "the imaginary apple orchard." I like that. So, while I don't want to be derivative, I'll try and plant some pear trees here and let them grow. Enjoy the shade and sweetness.