2003-03-06 9:47 a.m.

My drive to work each day is beautiful at worst and mind�crushingly breathtaking at best. Hills roll this way and that, bobbing up and down like ocean waves painted a solid sunny grass green. Cows graze, dotting the landscape like freckles�and I can't help but have a crush on anything with freckles. A long, skinny lake cuts into hills to the west and stretches for miles�clouds of thousands of white birds fly above it in some choreographed dream sequence. Mountains linger to the East and West, clothed completely in forest.

My eyes are overloaded with this beauty each day, there are so many pieces of this fantastic puzzle. Sometimes it gets to the point where my brain is just maxed out. And then I am no longer capable of processing some individual pieces in this natural mosaic�things which on their own would normally peg my beauty meter to the very top. Sharp blue skies�cloudless and virgin�or the mountains towering behind the hills flanking either side of the road. I might not even notice them some days. Sorry nature, my brain and heart are full. Try again later.

Like today. Today in my mind there were no birds or mountains or forests. Today there was only the empty blue sky and the ancient oak trees. I fell in love�at least it felt like love�with their intersection, that place of radical contrast where the dark trees masked the bright blue photons of light from my eyes. The oak trees were like craggy, black fractals computing and reaching their algorithms up to the heavens. There was nothing but the sky, the trees, and the razor sharp contrast where they met.

And at that moment all I could think of was how good it was to be alive because there are oak trees. And then for the first time I felt sad about my own inevitable death. I don't want to leave the oak trees behind.


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