Lunch lessons

I recently visited a local park. The weather was nice, and I had taken my lunch to a sunny picnic bench. I have two takeaways from that experience.

First, I was surprised by the number of people sitting in parked cars. The parking lot had seven vehicles; six of them had drivers eating or looking at their phones. The seventh vehicle was mine.

The second takeaway has to do with what I noticed while I ate. A shiny piece of metal on one of the trees caught my eye. It was a small, numbered aluminum tag. As I looked around, I noticed other trees with tags. Were all of them tagged?

My thought was this: someone tends to these trees. They’re cared for. Managed. Maintained.

To the casual passerby, it’s just a park with trees. But they’re not just any trees. They are trees that are known individually. Cared for individually. Loved individually?

I was glad to choose a bench over a driver’s seat, and glad to pause long enough to notice the trees.