All things in life have the meaning we give them

It’s been over three years since I’ve seen this tree in person. I used to ride past it a few times a week on my way back to the city after exploring and disappearing into one of my favorite riding playgrounds in the world. Marin. It was a totem of a place I called home, it was a mandatory photo op, it was a place to sit in the shade and take in the view, but it was (and is) just a tree.

Years before I’d ever seen this tree in person, I was walking around in Los Angeles and I stumbled upon this couple playing hand pans (please look them up, and tell your ears I say you’re welcome). I sat and listened for an hour before my private concert on the beach evolved into a conversation about music and philosophy and then later evolved into what is now a decade-long friendship. They invited me into their home and had me over to dinner with their kids who were substantially closer to my age. They gifted me a stone one year and I carried it with me everywhere for good luck. To races on the bicycle, in my jacket pocket on long moto rides, to exams when I went back to college, and to meetings at my first agency.

Time passed and I called them to check in and tell them about the stone and how it’s helped me. They responded with something I’ll never forget: “Zach, it’s just a rock, all things in life have the meaning we give them.”

Back to the tree in Marin. Last weekend I had the opportunity to see this famous road and solitary tree with fresh eyes. It held all of the meaning that I’d given it back then, but something had changed. It had also become a sign post for a period of my life. One that I look back to fondly, but one that is also fading, or maybe transforming, or maybe evolving. Does that mean the tree is still significant? Yes. Does it mean that the meaning of all things, places, people, and experiences can change with time? Yes.

Our reality is spiritual, expansive, connected, emotional, cyclical, artistic, cosmic. We can live in the past or the present or the future. The exercise of observing how the meaning of this simple tree will continue to change is a special one, and an exercise I will never stop practicing.

All things in life have the meaning we give them.