Walking my only baby to kindergarten this fall, I’ve had some time to think about the passage of time. It’s hard not to, for someone who was an enrolled student until age 30. The changes and complexities of autumn have been a factor, too. (I mean, it’s been raining all these dry leaves down on us lately. If I think too hard about it, my brain goes fizzy.)

Once school started, we found a few different routes onto school grounds. There’s a gap in the fence at the back of the soccer fields; there’s a winding bike path that spits us out at the sidewalk across the front entrance.

There’s also a sidewalk that turns onto the property and then runs along the southern edge. It’s wide and suburban and lined with evenly-spaced, medium-sized trees.

Among them is a gingko. I didn’t notice it standing there until the morning after a windstorm ripped a few of its hardy leaves down early.

The pale little fans looked like adornments someone had used to decorate the sidewalk. Our path was marked for the journey into a new school day, my child’s school years, and my own… whatever awaited me!

Writing Prompt

The gingko isn’t just significant to me. It’s native to China but remains an important specimen and symbol across the world. It was planted on temple grounds in Japan; a few of them even withstood the bombing of Hiroshima. Gingko trees can live a thousand years, and their oldest fossils are 55 million years old.

This gingko is hardy. It endures, so many people are reminded of their own resilience—or lack thereof. It withstands. It lasts. We might take hope from its presence.

Nature offers many such opportunities to make meaning, but so does our constructed world. There are everyday objects that take on tremendous value—in sentimental and practical terms, whether or not we’re there to notice.

Choose an object you interact with or pass regularly—maybe one you’ve never thought much about. Describe it’s physical properties; list its uses. Then ask, as openly as you can, “What does this thing have to teach me?”