Just in Time

Today is the first of the month, and that means Theme Day for participating City Daily Photobloggers. This month's theme is Time.

I was this close to posting a really fun image of a Route 66 sign that was made into a clock. I found it recently at Fair Oaks Pharmacy. It's kitschy and fun, and a nice way to fool myself into thinking that the days aren't really passing by in their inevitable march to, well, something that isn't very kitschy or fun. But I realized that I was being rather uninventive, as well as wrapping up something obnoxiously existential and depressing in a rather syrupy and sarcastic little bow.

And then I remembered this tree. It's the legacy Morton Bay fig tree that dwarfs our historic library building. I love to sit there, perched on one of the roots like a wood nymph. The grand old tree has been growing for who knows how many years, spreading those roots out so far underground it's as if the entire city is being hugged by it. It has survived earthquakes, and wars, root rot and fungus, re-zoning laws and citizens who, believe it or not, at one point wanted to chop it down. If any one thing gets a solid A+ on the test of time, it's this tree. It reminds me not of the ineffable brevity of our lives, but of the gorgeous longevity of life itself. This tree doesn't have an opinion on Newton's version of time sequence vs. Kant's insistence that time is not even an event and can't possibly be measured. This tree hasn't pondered time travel's psychedelic world of possibility, where time itself is some sort of cosmic filmstrip and we can move forward and reverse if we can just sort out how to build a remote control to make it work.

This tree just is. And has been. For a very, very long time.

For other interpretations of today's theme, check out the work of a growing worldwide group of talented photobloggers. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants