My childhood yard had a yellow-leafed sugar maple, a copper beech, a narrow blue spruce, and a tree variety that bloomed every seven years, dividing the properties.
In the 1970s, after my marriage, our family lived on the corner of Holland Terrace in Montclair, New Jersey. Our view in Edgemont Park, across Valley Rd., took in a tall willow tree over a brook—its branches bending like a swooping bird. How different from an earlier knowledge of trees whose branches broke in the hurricanes of Carol in 1954 and Donna in 1960, laying trunks and limbs like Lincoln Logs across yards and roads.
The metaphor of trees in my life was to resemble the willow—bending in flexibility, rather than the rigid maple that broke.
One time, in a variation on this wisdom, my second husband told my daughter that when her mother said "No," if she waited a while, it would change to "Yes." I smiled. His comment of truth with humor helped me to see I needed to change a protective habit no longer needed.
Five years later, I would be able to ask my close friend—within minutes of a question—to repeat it a second time, when I would give a different answer from my first reactionary words.
Jan, of Positive Change* in Sebastian, Florida, is a friend who catches my attention because her comments express different angles. One day, when visiting, she leaned over straight-legged to pick up something on the floor and pointed out casually that she was extending her legs fully by not bending—adding a stretching exercise to her move.
Remembering her words, I still choose whether I bend or remain straight-legged picking up.
My realization is, "By integrating body awareness with routine movement, we create purposeful, conscious harmony."
*Positive Change, Michael and Jan Gallerano