A Lesson from the Ginkgo
To endure and persist in spite of it all.
My favorite time of year in Washington, D.C is October. The air is so crisp that you can snap it with your fingers, and it smells of rich incense and apple peels. October is marked by winning field goal kicks and warm beverages and a tranquility that comes with the end of the fiscal year. Above all else, I love the district in October for the ginkgo trees.
Moseying through the city it is easy to come across a benevolence of ginkgo trees. They line streets of which reside beautiful row homes, all pressed together and full of character and passionate people. Most of the year the ginkgo trees are inconspicuous- their waxy green leaves and brown branches do not command your attention. Yet in October, something miraculous happens. The leaves of the ginkgo turn a vibrant honey gold, so resplendent that I must resist the urge to reach down and run my hand along every fallen leaf. Their color is overwhelmingly brilliant, and I always feel I am in the presence of some great ancient being.
An Exceptional Resilience
This, in fact, is exactly the case. It would not be erroneous to ascribe the title “great ancient being” to the ginkgo. Ginkgo trees are often referred to as “living fossils” because they have remained relatively unchanged for millions of years. It is one of the oldest species in the world, and it is the sole survivor of an ancient group of trees that date back to before dinosaurs roamed the earth. It has no living ancestors, and is the last one left of its kind. John Green, American author and podcaster, summarizes the feeling this realization brings when he wrote in his book The Anthropocene Reviewed,
“How, in the presence of this tree, I feel newly aware that I am in a world vastly older than sin and even older than hope as we know it.”
I find that the resilience and adaptability of such a being is truly admirable. When I look at the ginkgo trees I cannot help but consider my own personal endurance. Certainly I have not lived through as much as the ginkgo, but I have lived through enough to know what it means to endure and persist. Pandemics have been survived, grief has been reckoned with, achievements have been strived after and earned. If this tree has had the resilience to make it this far, to find me in the middle of the street on a sunny October day, perhaps there is something it knows that I do not. Perhaps it knows that there is something extraordinary coming, something worth enduring for, and I should stick around to see it.
A Forked Path
As I marvel at the ginkgo trees and their tenacity, my attention is drawn to the peculiar shape of their leaves. The leaf exhibits dichotomous venation, meaning that it is forked into two distinct halves resembling a somewhat split appearance. This creates a fan-like structure, where the two halves of the leaf are pulling away from each other. It is as if the leaf did not know which direction it wanted to grow, and so it tried to grow in two separate directions at once.
I empathize with the ginkgo leaf on this matter, for I understand the feeling of being drawn in opposing directions. As a young professional in her twenties, I feel that I am in the freshman year of adulthood. Here, I am entirely moldable, and I can envision a million wonderful futures beckoning to me. I so desperately want to pursue each one. I feel that like the ginkgo leaf, my heart exhibits dichotomous venation. And yet, I cannot help but note that this unique shape is what makes the ginkgo leaf so beautiful and strange to me. Perhaps the same applies to my own desires- they are beautiful because they are forked.
Take the Leap
There comes a day every fall where, if I am of lucky fortune, I witness the great descent of the ginkgo lives. Unlike the sycamore or the oak, ginkgo trees drop their leaves all at once, sometimes in a single day. The yellow leaves fall to the ground in sheets of unison, as if the trees received a signal from the heavens above that commanded them to drop their leaves in one consent. The piles of bright leaves line the sides of the streets, each leaf forked into a shape of strife. When I catch this moment, I stand in it for some time, and let dozens and dozens of leaves float down in fluttering helices around me. A few days later, the branches are utterly and completely leafless.
This great descent reminds me of perhaps the most important lesson the ginkgo has taught me- we must hold fast and take the leap. This we can do, with the knowledge that one day, once autumn has ended and winter has paid its due, spring will come again.
