What a Maple tree taught me about morning light, letting go, and staying strong.
Originally posted: 06.03.2020. Revised 07.19. 2025.
I've been sleeping upstairs lately.
My condo has two bedrooms - one up and one down. Ordinarily, I sleep in the bedroom downstairs, but the room faces the cul-de-sac, and I keep the curtains closed for privacy, so the space is somewhat dark all the time. I should have purchased those blinds that you can pull down from the top to let in the light, but those are not the first (or only) home upgrades I've regretted making.
Anyway...
The bedroom upstairs has a dormer window, and right in front of it is a Maple tree that has grown about 10-feet or more since I moved in eight years ago. When I was a kid I remember thinking, "Someday, I want to live in a house with a red front door with a red maple tree in the yard."
Lucky for me, the Universe heard that as a complete sentence. Thank you.
Now that I sleep upstairs, Maple is the first thing I see each morning. She's the lead, but there's an entire chorus of trees behind her, so my window is filled with shimmering green emeralds from across the yard at sunrise.
Some days the leaves sit perfectly still. Other days when the wind is blowing, they turn their back to me and curve into the branches. Wave after wave they twirl, looking like mini Can-Can dancers showing off the underside of their petticoats. As they shimmy in the breeze, their color palette changes - emerald, pistachio, hunter, and back again.
During a storm, they become frantic and whirl like dervishes howling among themselves as loud as a chorus in a Greek tragedy. There's a strange harmony between their sound and the bellows of the wind that instigates their movement. Together, they warn us this is their dance - no place for us here.
In late August, the leaves on the outside perimeter of Maple turn a shade of pale red. The chorus gets bolder each day, the color becoming more and more intense, and by mid-September, the tree is on fire. This time, when the autumn wind rushes through, Maple gives up some of her jewels - a few at a time, and with a great deal of resistance. When the leaves float to the ground, like prima ballerinas taking their final curtain call, I'm filled with gratitude for their epic performance and cannot wait until their show hits the road again in six months.
I don't pay much attention to Maple after that. There doesn't seem to be much to see until spring.
But she's not finished. After the first snowfall, she cradles millions of magical ice crystals and snowflakes in her branches, and I think to myself she has never been more beautiful, more breathtaking. And even when her dance partner whisks the flakes away and she stands there bare naked, her resolve gives me the strength to hold on until opening night.
I may never sleep in the room downstairs again.
Is there a view from your home—past or present—that has stayed with you?
The views from kitchen windows are the easiest to recall, perhaps because of time spent. Neptune Avenue - my mother's kitchen with a view across the very short distance of a gravel driveway to the neighbor's door. Easy to see the husband who arrived home later and later, then not at all. Janwood - raising two small children and hours of dishes - sometimes seeing mostly my reflection in the darkness of evening. I watched the slight golden glint of my wedding ring and wondered about the views for my mother and grandmothers' days and nights of cleaning. And now - no window above the sink so only the view of tile I did not choose.