Cut a tree and the years are right there, one ring for each. Wide rings for good years, with plenty of rain and sun. Narrow rings for drought, cold or fire. Scientists can read a region’s history from them: this was the dry decade, this was the year of the late frost.
Two things about those rings are worth sitting with.
The narrow ring is still growth
A drought year does not leave a gap. The tree does not stop. It grows less, concentrates on what it must, and lays down a thin, dense band of wood. Dense wood, as it happens, is stronger wood. The hard years are literally the toughest part of the trunk.
Most people measure their difficult seasons by what did not happen: the plans that stalled, the goals that slipped, the version of the year they had imagined. The tree suggests a different measure. What did you lay down, thin and dense, that will hold weight later?
No single ring is the tree
From inside a hard year, it is the whole world. From the outside, decades later, it is one line among many. Foresters do not look at a narrow ring and declare the tree a failure. They note the year and move their eye outward to see what came after.
You are allowed to take the forester’s view of your own life. The hard year is real. It is recorded. It is also surrounded on both sides by other years, some of which have not happened yet.
Something to try
Draw a rough set of rings for the last ten years of your life, wide or narrow by how they felt. Look at the pattern, not the one you are in. Notice that the narrow ones are followed by wider ones more often than not. Then notice that the tree is still standing, and so are you.
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