the body electric, coda

Jennifer Tham
5 days ago
1 min read

We sing the body electric, celebrating the SYC to come.

Red cedar, Rainforest Trail, Ucluelet, BC

The final post on the writing of this SYC60 memory-legacy-theatre project is a rumination on Old Growth and the self-pruning trees of the Pacific Northwest. They just know when to let go, of a branch or two, or xx.

Sudden limb drop syndrome, it's sometimes called; more common in aging trees as they lose vascular capabilities.

Hmm.

The winding down of a song, improvisational, following a weather chart.

William Bryant Logan likens a tree to a jazz player, in The Things Trees Know —

Much like a jazz player, a tree lives by first stating its ancestral pattern, and then by repeating that pattern in every way possible for the rest of its long life.

Mmm.

There we are.

Letting go of old thoughts about singing, and singing together.

Here we be.

Lift, push, drag, pull, tear, throw. Place.

Repeat, in all ways possible; living music.