Some Quiet Thoughts in a Loud World
A guest column by Mary Schmich
It was drizzling, and the sky was that uniquely bleak color that on a paint chip might be called "Chicago gray," when I ran into a friend.
We were both out for a solitary walk.
"What are you up to?" I asked.
She tilted her umbrella and glanced skyward.
"I'm trying to name the trees," she said.
The trees along the sidewalk, next to a park, were bare, their bark dark with rain. I'd passed these trees thousands of times without bothering to wonder until this moment what they were called, and I certainly didn't know.
My friend went on about how she has made a project out of trying to learn the names of trees, though she conceded she hadn't made great progress.
The one tree she can confidently name, she said, is a maple. She likes to draw, and she draws maples in every season. She has absorbed all the details of how maple limbs look when the leaves have vanished and how the buds are shaped when the leaves are ready to return.
"What are these trees?" I asked.
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