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It comes to my attention now that today is Palm Sunday. We have not been particularly observant since leaving The City; we are not likely to find our way to services today, or really any other day, for reasons I will not discuss at this time (it will be better to treat the topic individually). But I suppose that it makes sense that the Mrs. and Ms. 8 and I will be staying home today. We do not need palm fronds for what we celebrate; our oak leaves more than suffice. Those we have do more for us than slivers of palm frond passed out in haste before processionals begin. And I suppose that that statement bears a bit of explanation.

It has been some months since my wife and I marked five years of marriage. Traditionally, the anniversary gift to accompany that year is to be made of wood. What my Mrs. and I decided to do was to plant a tree. (There are several metaphors in that.) What ended up happening was that she and I picked up some acorns while we were out walking one day and planted them. Presently, there are two little sprouts of oak tree emerging from a pot on a bedroom dresser. One is a foot tall, its green leaves unfurled and soaking in the increasing springtime sun; the other is just breaking the surface of the soil, soon to open its leaves. The Mrs. and I are glad to see both, and we look forward to one day planting one or the other of them in the yard at a forever home, where it and we can grow together and root ourselves firmly in place. And perhaps, in some future we can only now hope to see, we will give an acorn from that tree to Ms. 8 when she has been married for five years, or to other children who may yet come.

Thoughts of it return me to an older discussion, one which I addressed in this webspace after consultation with valued friends. Since leaving my parents' house, I have not lived in a place sufficiently mine that I would plant a tree in it and expect to sit under its shade or give gifts from it to a married daughter. I expand into the places I occupy, using them to externalize my interiority as best as I can, but I have not done so in a way that I have not been sure to be able to withdraw back into myself in my adult life. While I am aware that true permanence is an illusion, it is one frequently comforting, and I would weave it about myself if I could. Circumstances currently prohibit it, but I remain hopeful that they will change such that I can make a place for myself and for my family, offering to Ms. 8 especially a base from which to build her own life in the years to come.

The oak does more than the palm for such solidity, I think.