New Growth

An elephant's tusks never stop growing (although you might not believe me since you don't see elephants with huge tusks anymore, but the average size of tusks has decreased over the past hundred years because ivory poaching has resulted in making the ‘big tusk gene’ extremely rare). I've heard that our ears and noses never stop growing either, but I'm not a hundred percent on that. Even so, I like the thought. It makes no sense that our mind is the only thing about our bodies that is in constant growth (well, for some of us). I understand why we can't grow vertically forever, but we are never done growing, learning, absorbing our environment. So why is it that our bodies grow to a certain age then crumble and whither away?

I wish I was a tree. Their life cycle is a lot like our own. They start very tiny enclosed in a shell. They push through the dirt to uncover the light of sun much like our our journey to learn to speak. Once we have communication the light of learning can be seen bright and clear.  As the tree grows taller it can see more and more of the world surrounding it. As humans age we understand more and more about our surroundings. I would want to be a Sequoia tree. Tall and proud, living for centuries.

 I don't know what type of trees these are that I found sporadically lining the Ave in the U District, but I loved the way their delicate new growth proudly persevered through the rough bark of the trunk.