I looked out my window and saw a tree across the street…unmoving.

I don’t know why that struck me as unnatural.

Like I’d forgotten that trees are supposed to be stationary. Planted. Sentinel. But not even a leaf rustled with a passing breeze. Not even a bird chirping through home’s limbs or a visitor crossing its base.

It felt like a thing unalive.

How odd of me. To immediately feel that something was wrong because, for a brief moment, a living thing was motionless. Not trying to grow. Not trying to climb or achieve or stand out. Just being. Absorbing the world currently around it. Raw.

Remembering that stationary does not always mean stagnant.

Sometimes, it just means rest.