The old proverb: “With age comes wisdom”, appears to have some truth to it, at the very least to an old and brown leaf such as I. Never could I have imagined there being such a vast world out there, beyond the place of my birth, and away from my mother-tree. I was once green and ignorant of the world, oh I thought that my mother-tree was the world… maybe it was, once. I still remember that fateful day as clear as if it had happened yesterday. It was autumn and I could feel the tight squeeze on my mother’s hand weakening. Already had many of my brothers and sisters embarked on their respective journeys, but I was hesitant. Thus I held on in a desperate attempt to remain attached, trembling in the wind, due the ruthlessness of the storm abut also due to my misgivings; that is, the fear of discovering what lay beyond the sanctuary of my mothers warm embrace.
“Crack” the link between me and my mother disjoints, and before I could react I was already surfing the gales, subject to the powerful winds in all eternity. As I watched my mother-tree from a distance, I noticed something. There were at least a hundred trees, a hundred “worlds” surrounding me. This insight invoked within me a widening of perspective. I was but a leaf hanging of a tree, puny it the face of it all.. Eagerness to explore, eagerness to understand exploded within the very essence of my being. This is the life I was meant to lead, all that was before, was but a prelude.
Benjamin Bratz 