When I first moved into this second-floor flat, the place was open from north to south, nothing blocked the light, and the view carried a fair distance. On a lazy afternoon I could lie on the bed and watch the sun slide down the west wall of the building diagonally opposite. The glow retreated in stages, a little lower each time, and it looked like time itself in motion. I always wanted to reach out and touch that wall, because the marks of passing time were right there on it — but the marks moved too fast to catch.
A few years later, the light on that wall turned patchy. The saplings planted in the courtyard had grown tall enough to just clear the second floor, and they began cutting into my view of the wall. In those years, the most striking thing to look at from the window became the swaying of leaves. Seen from below, a whole tree looks still, but looking straight into the crown is a different matter: the leaves up there tend to be a fresher, greener shade, and they ripple into a scene of their own. That scene is a crowded kind of joy — leaping above the ground, chattering with birds, a small spectacle at the very top.
I can't remember which year the living room started to feel dim. I found myself reaching for the light switch whenever I was in the room, even though there's no large building blocking either side of the flat. Then I looked at the trees whose crowns I could no longer see, and realized they had reached the third floor. The rows that kept climbing were now standing between me and the sunlight, and the view of the treetops was gone for good. Recently I made a point of looking up while walking through the compound: the trees in front of the building are as tall as the fourth floor now. Flowers come back looking much the same year after year; trees do not. They have never once slackened off. They keep growing, keep getting taller and sturdier.
That's the south side. The north side is more interesting. Along the parapet of the north balcony, a white magnolia came up on its own. I remember when I first noticed it, it had fewer than three leaves in total and looked like a stiff breeze would finish it. More than a decade passed. One day I happened to notice it had grown considerably, wedged against the wall, and only then did I look at it properly. The insignificant little sprout had turned into a tree at some point. I have no idea where its roots are anchored — there is only that sliver of growing space — yet it has managed to become vigorous and full. The vitality of plants is genuinely astonishing.
So what am I supposed to do with this white magnolia on the balcony wall? It is strong and beautiful, living with such obvious upward energy, but the patch of ground it occupies really is cramped. And the crucial problem is that it will never stop growing. That is what makes it difficult for me.
The tree's urge to push outward and take more ground is simply the instinct to grow. So I've decided to prune the branches that stray too far, and make sure it reaches some kind of balance, some coexistence, with the place it is rooted in. Where a seed lands depends on a great deal of chance; the seed itself has no say. If it happens to fall on a balcony wall with little soil and plenty of stone, where conditions are poor, it has to learn to adapt to that ledge, to reach upward for more room and grow steadily.
Growth, I think, is the nature of every living thing, and adapting to circumstances is the basic skill that makes growth possible. If you can't change your surroundings, you might as well adapt to them and look for whatever opening they leave. That goes for trees. It goes for people too.