Reaching Intertwined Roots

Last Sunday, I bought a new pair of walking shoes and retired a beat up, old, smelly pair. The old ones were oh-so-comfy, and the new ones oh-so-stiff and unyielding.

I decided that in order to break the new shoes in a little, I would venture over to Mill Grove, the home of John James Audubon and walk on the grass and dirt trails to give my feet some cushion.


While moseying around the meandering trails, I saw some Hawks high in the trees but was more taken by the white bark of the Sycamores. I found myself looking into the bright blue skies more and more and nearly tripped over...


...this marker. It reads "Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two."

I later found this to be a quote from "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" by Louis de Bernieres. In full, it goes:
Love is a temporary madness,
it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.
And when it subsides you have to make a decision.
You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together
that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.
Because this is what love is.
Love is not breathlessness,
it is not excitement,
it is not the promulgation of eternal passion.
That is just being "in love" which any fool can do.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away,
and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.
Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground,
and when all the pretty blossom have fallen from their branches,
they find that they are one tree and not two.



After my walk, I sat to rest my beat up feet and looked at this photograph that my Honorary Aunt Bea sent me in the mail that weekend. It is undated and unmarked. But I'd recognize that location any day. This was one of my grandmother's favorite photo op spots (note the last two photos taken about 25 years later).

It wasn't until later, after reading what Far Side of Fifty wrote about the old fashioned flashbulbs and reminded me of how troublesome they were, that I realized that my Grandmother liked this spot because it was in direct sunlight and it was right outside the kitchen door. Now I know why at least half of the old photographs she either took or had taken, were done at this very spot!

This is my Dad (who claims to not remember what the event might of been) standing with my Grandmother outside the kitchen door of their house in Phildadelphia, Pennsylvania. The best we can do dating this photo is "about 1948".


Here is an early color picture of my Dad dressed in his Army uniform holding my big brother in his arms. I wasn't born yet at the time this picture was taken in the spring of 1959. It was taken in the lawn area just off the walkway.

Later, my gardening-crazed Grandmother would have a row of red Azalea bushes planted along the walkway leading to the front of the house.

My family has some very deep, intertwined roots on, under and around that unremarkable slab of concrete.