leaning

 

 

When I think about the need to lean on someone, the redbud tree in my yard comes to
mind.

One of its branches has begun to split—not completely broken, but no longer able to
carry itself in the same way. Beneath it, another branch has grown at just the right
angle, quietly taking on some of the weight. They are both strong. Both fully themselves.
And yet, one supports the other without effort or announcement.

Nothing about it is dramatic. There is no fixing, no intervention. Just a steady, living
support that has formed over time.

This is what it can feel like to be supported.

On the days when I am struggling, when something in me feels tight or uncertain, Don
will reach for my hand. My body softens before I even realize it. I look into his beautiful
blue eyes and, like the redbud in my yard, I feel his steady support. He doesn’t need to
say much. A few quiet words, maybe—but it’s not the words that reach me. It’s the way
he is there, fully, without trying to fix or rush anything. In that space, I know I can lean.

I’ve felt this kind of leaning in other places too.

In women’s circles, when someone is moving through something difficult, the room
shifts. It becomes still. No one interrupts. No one tries to solve it. The circle listens.
Holds. Makes space for her to be exactly where she is. There’s a quiet kind of strength
in that—an unspoken agreement to stay present.

It’s a kind of leaning that soothes something deep in the soul.

Real support often looks quieter than we expect. It isn’t advice or solutions. It’s staying.
It’s listening. It’s not turning away when something is hard.

The tree has become a kind of reference point for me. A reminder I can return to when
things feel strained or uncertain.

This is how I think about being held.

Nothing dramatic. Nothing being fixed. Just something steady underneath, strong
enough to meet the weight without collapsing.

 

Like those branches, we aren’t meant to carry everything alone. And sometimes, the
strongest thing we can do is lean.

This poem came from the same tree.

Redbud

Arms gather you,
all your careful armor
loosens, falls away.

Skin remembers skin
before words,
before leaving had a name.

You’ve felt this before:
the way a cup wraps around tea,
unchanged—
only held.

The redbud—
a broken branch
leaning easily
on the limb beneath it.

You soften into
what holds you,
like moonlight resting on water.

And then you know:
nothing in you
was ever outside
this embrace.