Over my lifetime I have embraced many identities–only child, big sister, student, artist, teacher, wife, mother, grandmother, friend. As I said before, identity is fluid, ever changing and each of us is, perhaps, the person least able to describe ourselves. It has always been, for me, that the person I hope I am is the identity I try to embody and may not reflect how others see me. So in responding to this challenge of “identity” I once again took a reading of who I am at this stage of my life and found, again, that it has shifted.

Years ago I heard Garrison Keillor talking about the elders in his family–aunts, uncles, parents as figures, in his eyes, of tall, solid, dependable,”like the oldest trees in the forest.”  Over the last twenty years I have lost all my elders. That generation is now gone and I am now one, among the oldest trees in our family forest and I now embrace the idea of being a tree, still standing tall and solid rather than something old and no longer useful. I can identify with roots and branches, with history hidden in the rings of years, secrets and memories beneath my skin adding strength and vitality to the core. As a tree I am firmly connected to earth and reaching for the stars. I live to shelter and nourish and take my own strength from the love and companionship of those coming after me. I have enjoyed many sunny days and weathered many storms, learning to bend and recover unbroken. 

I am complete. I am still growing. I am finished with this and just beginning with that. I am eternal. I am ephemeral. I am a tree.

Terry Grant

I am a Tree

14″ x 40″

hand painted fabrics, fused and stitched