Treants

May is my favorite month of the year and has been since I was a kid. Those leaves sprout from the trees in the first couple days of May and I'm instantly reassured that I survived the winter and that summer is near. Little League in my youth hit full swing in May. School years ended in May. I met Lori in May. Ben was born in May.

This year, the buds on our linden tree kept teasing, but on queue, usually around May 3, they sprout. I'm on my porch writing this, looking at a full tree of leaves, accompanied by the full maple of leaves as well.

But May is bittersweet in that if I don't fully appreciate each sunny day, each warm temperature, each spring storm (and last night, we had a doozy, with the weirdest orange sky I've seen here in Utah in 23 years), the month is half over before I make an attempt to fully enjoy it. This May, here I am, on May 15 -- and I'm just getting into the swing of the month. June will be hear before I know it.

The kidney stone threw a serious wrench into my May. I was fully sidelined for about six days, working a little from bed, and barely getting outside. I kept the window open and could see spring in bloom, but the pain and fatigue kept me in bed, watching Hogan's Heroes, and wondering why when everything seems to be going positively, something -- usually a health issue -- derails it. I was loving the first few days of May, running almost every morning, and soaking in the spring. One little kidney stone halted all that for more than a week.

Thankfully, the kidney stone passed last night. I actually cried for about 15 seconds, I was so relieved. Hopefully, that's the last surprise for 2023, at least through the rest of May and then the summer. 

Looking at these leaves that I'm only now beginning to appreciate, my mind wanders to treants in Dungeons and Dragons. Treants are essentially ents from Lord of the Rings, renamed along with hobbits and balrogs because D&D so blatantly ripped off Tolkien. A treant is a anthropomorphic tree that can speak, move, defend, and inspire other trees. 

With May upon us, I began to wonder, do treants lose their leaves every fall? Do they sprout new ones each spring, maybe even blossom, say, if it's a cherry treant? Do they lose branches in the winter from too much snow? Do they fear Dutch elm disease? Or, do they just live every day like a normal tree, not worrying about those things?

Sixteen days remain in May. Like a treant, I'm planning on taking my time through the rest of the month.

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