Lots of things can be learned by watching a crooked tree. When we walk through the forest surrounded by the quiet, our footsteps barely audible against the damp soil, we slow down enough to actually look around, take in the multitude of trees standing tall and straight and think, this is the way a forest should be. All of the trees perfect specimens, their trunks straight, their leaves the perfect shade of green, their roots solidly planted in the earth.

This is what makes a forest a good forest. All the trees living their lives in perfect harmony because they are just like the other trees, both in thought and deed, they all fit together perfectly. Their stories are also the same. ” I’ve had a good life. As a sapling I was fortunate enough to be planted in a good grove, I’ve had all the water and sunlight I needed to grow strong and true. I have been sheltered from storm and winds by the others. I have never faced fire. I am a good tree.”

But then you see a crooked tree. A tree misshapen and gnarled and the recipient of much of the hardness that life has to offer. It has been bent and twisted by forces both in and out of its control and they have left their marks on the crooked tree. It is no longer straight, it shows the scars that hard times have placed on it. You stop and wonder, arrested by its appearance. There  are many questions. How is it that you are different from other trees. Are you a bad tree. Are you being punished. What has happened that you are a crooked tree. Tell me your story.

And the crooked tree does have a story and it is much different from the tall, straight tree’s story. “Many things have befallen me as I stand here before you. I too wished to be a straight, tall tree living in a perfect grove with my history all around me, proud of my standing amongst my friends and  family, the same as every other tree, but a stray breeze, nothing more than a simple zephyr, carried me to a different place, an inhospitable place for trees and I lodged between rocks and sand where there often wasn’t much water and the thought of bright clear sunlight was a distant dream. Misfortunes befell me and made long-lasting changes to my shape. A massive fallen tree dislodged in a storm fell upon me. It was years before it finally was removed but by then it had changed my shape.”

“I have had to fight for my water, my sunlight, my very survival and yet I am still here. I have been immersed in snow and frozen in cold so deep my roots began to lose their grip. Animals have tasted my leaves and branches and others, laughing at my shape have attempted to change it even more, but through it all I am here. I have produced leaves and needles, I have continuously pushed my crown towards the sky and I have succeeded for the most part. But as you can see it has left me changed. Yet through it all I am still a tree. And a tree is just a tree no matter its shape. There are many more stories that tell of events in my life that caused me to take on this shape but they are stories for another time.”

There is much to be learned from watching a crooked tree. Its shape tells part of its story but not all. One must spend more time listening with your eyes and feeling with your heart to learn what stories the tree has to tell. Some may find it worth it, but others may not. Whatever you hear or see and however you choose to accept it is up to you. Barring catastrophe the tree will still be there, misshapen or not.