This year marks the beginning of the next decade for this about to bloom red bud tree. I bought this as a shrub when I first moved to Stowe Lane ten, yes ten, years ago and it has thrived.

Shrubs don’t normally reach for the skies and become trees unless the stars align, they are properly pruned and fertilized with all the best nutrients. There is love involved and crossed fingers and sighs of relief when one realizes that the blizzards and winds, and blights have left you, I mean it, unscathed.

Of course there is no way to know what lies ahead in the upcoming decade, no way to know where one is in the ever faster unrolling of the toilet paper metaphor. And really does one need to know or just trust?

So as we move into our next decade I will rely on this beautiful red bud to continue to stop me in my tracks alerting me to spring each year and showing me the way. The way to reach for the skies, prune what is dead or no longer needed, and adjusting and adding more and better nutrients as time goes on.

All the while leaving our beautiful story behind on Stowe Lane.