Oh Tree, I Will Remain

This time of year, tourists and locals crowd into the mountains of Colorado to gaze upon our majestic autumn colors. So many of us are out there, all of us hoping for that perfect shot, I wondered what I could do differently to make my photos stand out this year, or speak differently to the eyes. I wanted to shoot photos that raised emotion for the viewer. I wanted my photos to be a reflection of what falling leaves made me FEEL.

It was so windy when I went up. I love the sound of leaves leaving their host of a branch to land among others on the soft forest floor. The wind whistled and violently stripped the leaves from their home, but left a falling of beautiful golden color across my path.

I love the common analogy that leaves die, fall, and regrow. It is the recreation of life. The hope that this is not the end. The reminder that harshness of life endures only a season.

My season has been long. It has been violent, and a tempest. The stripping of living pieces of me have resulted in a partially barren soul. But I am not the leaves. I am the trunk, the branches. The falling pieces have to relinquish its beauty and livelihood to lie dormant for a season. There will be ice and cold and storms. But while my leaves are blowing away as chaff and life seems out of focus, the trunk stands strong, and still, and sturdy. Grounded. 

How could I show that in photographs? How could I capture what I was feeling visually? By letting the leaves blur and the trunks remain in focus.

I've always loved the shape and color and veins in an aspen leaf. But what I love this year? The way they take flight and fall away when the wind shows up and tears them from their clinging host.

Soon the trees will be barren. Soon they will quiet, and the life will seemingly be taken from them. I feel like that, like life has stalled, and been shaken from me. But in reality, it hasn't been at all. I am grounded and growing stronger during the winter months of my existence. I feel exposed, and naked. I also feel vulnerable, and honest, and more capable of growing a more beautiful set of leaves when the winter passes than if I would have if I had clung to what was already there.


My best friend of 40 years gave me the nickname "Tree" when we were but teenagers. Little did I know then what an empowering term that could be. I'm so proud to wear it. I want to own it. I want to take that nickname and become it. I want to grow, let go, and grow again. I want what I leave behind me to make a soft forest floor for another to walk upon. I want the seasonal tearing away of what's there to make room for more, and I want to flood people with the beauty of it and leave joy in its path.

Oh Tree, I will remain.

Christy, what a gift your nickname of me is......Love you.