The Perfectly Chopped Down Tree

Tree, topped and trimmed, The Presidio, San Francisco. Photo by author.

Dear bookstore, I said, I’m here at the front door with a bag of coffee.

That’s perfect, the bookstore replied.

To leave something behind so that it may be caught up to sometime in your lifetime to be remembered, even cherished, is perfect. It’s perfectly ok too to leave a bag of coffee at the frontdoor of bookstore after having taken an early morning walk to see the perfect tree, perfectly standing beneath the perfectly manicured tree.

The key word here in almost every transaction is perfect, though nothing is perfect, the concept of perfect can only be bestowed by the one using the word perfect while knowing the word itself is not perfect, containing at least a slight imperfection in its packaging and its contents.

I didn’t deliver the coffee because I hadn’t knocked on the door. In any case the bookstore was closed that day.