STORY NO. 1: Early this spring a neighbor informed me that I had a tree growing in the middle of a hosta plant beside my house.  Somehow the little tree had sprouted in an area completely smothered by a hosta plant and so close to my house that it could not possibly get either good sunlight or moisture.

Once the little tree had poked its head above the hosta plant, it seemed to grow and grow.  Realizing that the tree ultimately could not survive there, I decided that I would transplant it near my parents’ house.  But before I could do so, a neighbor, assuming I could not possibly want the little tree, cut it down for me.  Appreciating the incredible odds against which the little tree had grown and thrived, I was saddened that I had not acted in time to save it.

Earlier this week, I walked around the side of my house and saw that my hosta plants had died back for the winter – and standing proudly in the middle of one were four not-so-tiny sprigs of my little tree.  As I looked at them, I thought wistfully of a prose selection from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn that I cut for a Charleston Catholic High School student many years ago.  I had included the following lines at both the beginning and the end of the cutting:

There is a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people call it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky.  It grows in boarded-up lots and out of neglected rubbish heaps and it is the only tree that grows out of cement. It grows lushly, but only in the tenement districts.  That is the kind of tree it is ….

(The beginning of the book includes these words in the past tense.)

I remember having had great difficulty explaining to Irene that she should deliver these lines quite differently at the beginning and end because the words have a more significant meaning after one hears Francie’s story, which mirrored Irene’s own personal story, a point that Irene was too young to appreciate fully.

STORY NO. 2: On May 1 I walked out of my workplace for the last time.  Over a two-and-one-half year period, I had been deprived of virtually everything I needed to learn and grow professionally.  I spent those two and one-half years undertaking, with almost no support, project after project in which I had little or no expertise and/or interest, being systematically excluded from any project I might have found remotely interesting or for which I might have added value, and having the simplest administrative tasks made inordinately difficult.  Throughout that period and against all odds, I would get a little nourishment here and there, but it ultimately proved not to be enough.

Upon arriving home after my last day of work, I resolved to start afresh professionally and personally.  Recognizing that I needed to lose weight, I took a five-mile walk.  I walked five more miles the next day and five more miles two days after that.

Before too long I set a goal of walking 100 miles during the month of May.  When I reached that goal on May 21, I raised the goal to 150 miles – a goal I achieved on May 31.  Somewhere along the way during May, I set a new goal – to complete a 1,000 mile journey and do it in six months.  It just seemed right given Lao-tzu’s quotation: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

In early June I continued to walk day after day before wondering to myself whether I could jog.  So I began taking mini-jogs during my walks until one day in late June I managed to jog five miles.  Only a few weeks after that, I completed a ten-mile jog.

On July 28, three days ahead of schedule, I crossed the 500-mile mark and began preparing for the 15-mile Charleston Distance Run.  In a 16-mile test jog two weeks before the race, I developed a shin splint, which persisted for about a month, and prevented me from participating in the run.  But I soldiered on – mile after mile, day after day, toward my thousand-mile goal.

Unfortunately, several large work projects and family illness prevented me from reaching my October 31 goal, but still I persisted.  Today I completed the 1,000-mile journey.

For me the journey has been both physical and metaphorical – as I have become much healthier, found supportive colleagues, and undertaken new projects that again allow me to learn and grow.  And for that I am extremely thankful.

EPILOGUE.  Although a very long journey has come to an end, the scrappy little tree and I are not done.  You see, that little tree will be transplanted on Thanksgiving Day.  In its new home, it will have all the sunshine and moisture and breathing room it needs.

As the scrappy little tree and I begin new journeys, I am confident we will grow and thrive.  Thirty years from now, I predict, that scrappy tree will provide some traveler, who has no idea of its origin, some much-needed shade on a hot summer day.  As for me, who knows?

There is a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some people call it the Tree of Heaven.  No matter where its seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky.