Like some other people, maybe, the older I get the younger I feel. It doesn’t matter that I can no longer leap over a wall with only a hand to support me — oh wait, could I ever do that? — or that I have a brain fart now and then. In my mind’s eye I am as juvenile and smart and sassy, not to mention as beautiful, as ever. Does everyone out there feel this way?

It makes me think of a certain tree.

This grande dame is an olive tree that is 3,000 years old — the oldest olive tree, I think, in the world — and she is still producing olives. Funny, she looks to be all root. Maybe rootedness is what preserved her.

Yet young trees are as admirable as old ones. An old tree fell across the street from my house, and it was replaced by this sweet little weeping cherry.

No, she’s not going to produce olives anytime soon, or even cherries. But seeing her keeps me young.