The big old pine tree feel right on top of the private and quiet corner Maria and I built between the garden and the pasture. We planted a garden and shrubs so that our corner could be private, the tree gave us shade and blocked the view from the road. It was quite and beautiful back there, we could look out over the pasture and watch the sunlight come and go. Usually, there was a donkey or a sheep or pony grazing right nearby, the trees blocked out the noise from the road.

I loved to sit in that chair in the evening, put headphones into my I phone and listen to music. I bought the chair nine years ago in Hebron, just down the road from the first Bedlam Farm, a retired marine sergeant named Don Coldwell makes wonderful Adirondack chairs, he befriended me when I moved into my farm there, but we lost touch and I had not really seen him since then.

Maria and I often sat together out in that quiet corner, Flo usually climbs into my lap, Red lies down behind me, the donkeys and Chloe come sniffing around by the fence,  hoping for treats or attention.  I meditated there, and sat out in that chair when I was anxious or sad. I brooded a bit in that chair, looking back on the mistakes and wrong turns in my life, and I felt good there, I felt close to nature. The meaning of life, I often thought there, is whatever it is you wish it to be.

And in that corner is where I did some of my best reflecting on the meaning of life.

Being alive is the point, it is the meaning of life.

I’m not sure how it works, but it seems ironic to be that our quiet little meditation corner was destroyed by a big old pine tree, the tree was probably planted before the civil war. It’s time had come, and it was discreet. It wrecked our chairs and our private space but it spared everything else. I feel things happen for a reason, generally, but I’m not sure what the message is. It’s something I would have considered sitting out in the meditation chair.

The chair looks to be a wreck, and I’m  not sure we will use that corner again as a quiet and reflective space. There is no shade there now, and little privacy. It’s a small thing in the scheme of bigger things, but I’m not sure I will be able to see it as quiet place again.