You know that feeling when something sneaks up on you.

Like one second, you’re wishing everyone a Happy New Year, and then the next thing you know it’s Christmas all over again. Or celebrating the birth of a precious new baby, and as they hit three, four and five month milestones wondering how you lived without them before. That casual friend who becomes a lifeline in the face of some mini/major life crisis– or the reverse, as a dear friend morphs into a person you barely know anymore.

Life is so unexpected, which is its greatest gift and greatest challenge.

That feeling of “wait, what?” came upon me like a freight train during one of my many neighborhood walks at the end of 2024. Right off of a main street that I traverse weekly, a 20-foot ginkgo tree seemingly popped out of the ground overnight. Shocking sunshine after the rain, canary against the coal, fresh lemon zest, or the first daffodil bloom out of the winter earth.

“Where did you come from?” I asked the tree aloud. It simply responded by dropping one marigold leaf after another.

I stood under the ginkgo’s canopy, and thought about all the different things in my life I haven’t realized were there until it was undeniably right in front of my face. 

There have been so many.

For a few weeks afterwards, I walked by the ginkgo and watched it shower the sidewalk with its yellow leaves, until the one cold afternoon when it was finally bare. 

My heart leapt and broke all at once at this transformation. What if I had missed it?/Thank God I didn’t miss it! 

That is life– destroying you one minute only to give the brightest glimmer of hope the next.

“Seeing the ginkgo” has become a life mantra. I now look for that moment everywhere because as much as I love the surprise, taking a second to look longer, wider, deeper, and further can change everything. And maybe I’m ready for some big changes.

So, tell me, have you ever seen the ginkgo? Xx