"I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back,

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches." - Robert Frost

You know how people are always telling us we have to become willow trees in order to survive a tempest, to bend and sway and be all laid back and loose, like we'd smoked a pound of pot or something?  Otherwise, we'll snap.  Or at least that's what all the willows say.  

I say bullshit.  I'm never going to be a willow tree.  I'm a hardwood.  Type A control freak with leaves that tremble when the wind whispers.   Doom and gloom with a mix of optimism.  A good life storm will take me down and keep me down, "You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen," says Frost of birches.  

But birches don't break.  They bend in a storm without getting all willowy about it.

Painting by Kimberly Kiel