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It is winter and these trees are bare. They stand in a straight line along the basketball court and one wonders what they would look like covered in green. Only one brown and crumpled leaf has yet to fall and bunches of what I know to be “gum-drops” cling on like soggy and tired grapes. Emotions greatly influence how trees are personified, their bodies often so much like our own that it is easily done, and the up-right branches, the consequence of poor trimming, that previously felt scream-like now only speak to me of growth. Coming out of the mother trunk they take a turn, going left or going right in a violent manner as is true with all separations. Cleaving; there is a strong pulling away, a need to identify one’s self as different from the source, but never a complete and utter break. To hack it off would be to cut off the life source. After that initial change in movement these branches go vertical, after perhaps choosing to tie themselves in knots, dive into themselves, collide with others, but always up. A straight leap for the sky. Is what I previously took as panic just the result of self-preservation and individual growth?
Antoni Gaudi.La Sagrada Familia interior.
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