Trees: The Best Social Networkers

Trees have always known how to get their message to millions of social network users. Since the dawn of creation, trees have set a standard that every blog writer and product seller and business owner should emulate. Take the ancient tree in my neighbor’s backyard for example:

As one of the oldest trees in our neighborhood, its trunk is at least 5 feet in diameter, and it produces millions of seeds every year to blow on the wind like snow, networking its legacy to hundreds if not thousands of locations. It’s branches hang over onto our garage and into our yard, and we don’t really appreciate the drifts and piles it bestows on us, especially not when the seeds end up in my kitchen, in my laundry, in my shoes, in my bed …

But the tree pays no mind to my complaints. It just waits for the best time to give wing to its messages by the millions, hoping that a few will take root, that it will produce something that will last. It doesn’t stop. Year after year, it goes through its cycles of dormancy, leafing, seeding … and we who are closest to it might not appreciate how its seeds get caught in our lives, but someone far away might need a wee tree seedling, might need the shade, the oxygen, the connection with creation that comes from my neighbor’s backyard tree. The tree that began as a seed itself and whose seed babies now flock onto my windshield wipers where they wait like anxious children at the fair to be flipped into the air as I fly down the freeway.

I would hope that the people closest to me aren’t sick of my seed dropping as I constantly work to provide for my family via various entrepreneurial endeavors. I’m a fitness chick, an editor, and more. Tweeting and blogging and chatting about my passions comes as naturally to me as the old tree dropping her seeds. I’m not trying to bury people. I’m just hoping that my desire to help others with my particular brand of pilates and yoga, and my faith-filled fitness blogs, and my bumbling bits of wellness advice are carried on the waves of the web, rooting where they are most needed and where they will be appreciated.

By the way, what kind of tree is this anyway? I have no idea! But I am grateful for the analogy about social networking that it inspired. Now I must go help my daughter sweep …