Life Cycles
- Eduardo Beltrame
- Oct 4
- 2 min read
The other day someone asked me if I write. I almost answered right away that I don't. But I hesitated, paused for a couple of seconds, and said that I do write — when inspiration strikes. And if you look through my history here, you'll see that inspiration is quite rare... (laughs). Truth be told, I'm not in the habit of writing, but sometimes ideas come to me, and the inspiration to express them in words follows.
Many times, that inspiration begins with an image — not always a photograph. I see something that captures my attention, imagine the photograph I could take — sometimes I actually do — and then the inspiration to write a few words comes afterward. That’s how it happened this week.
Arriving at my parents’ house, at the entrance to their neighborhood, there's a beautiful, lush Paraguayan cherry tree (Chapéu-de-sol). At this time of year, this species is usually just beginning to sprout again after shedding its leaves in autumn/winter. But this particular tree still has many leaves left to fall — bright red, in a shade that’s rarely seen. The day was beautiful, with radiant sunshine and a stunningly blue sky.
I started looking at that scene, at this natural cycle, and began thinking about the cycles in our own lives. That tree, which once appeared full of life, lush, covered in large green leaves that offered pleasant shade on a hot summer day, is now shedding its leaves, its branches becoming bare, almost dry. To the untrained eye, it might even look like it’s dying.
But it’s not. The truth is that it’s still full of life. It’s simply closing a cycle — a natural phase of its life. A phase that may be painful to witness, but still holds a unique beauty if we know how to appreciate it. A phase that doesn't define the tree, nor give it its name, but one that is both inevitable and necessary so it can return to being what it is—so it can once again offer us its generous shade on the hottest summer days.
And so it goes with our lives, too. Sometimes, cycles come to an end; we go through hard, painful phases, phases that do not define us but that must pass so we can move forward on our life’s path. A cycle that ends is the prelude to a new one that's about to begin. We just need to be patient enough to wait for new life to bloom.
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