pine cones in the belltower

Europe is old, in case you didn't know. All signs of man are thick with a sense of a history. The wall behind me isn't just a wall. Before it was a university, it was a cigar factory. The cathedral windows across the street differ in architecture styles as your gaze goes upward. The dark curve of Gothic, the mystical weave of Islam, the proud arch of Roman Catholic, stacked atop each other in different shades of brick. The building itself is a testament to the universality of religion, of man's need to build upward, of the scars of past occupations and war.

The oak trees in Portugal's countryside are half-shaven of their bark. A biologist picks me up, explains the cork can be harvested every nine years without harming the tree. They save forests in this manner, it's sustainable, and they've been doing it for decades.

"This one is an old forest, in fact." he says.
"How old do you think?" I wonder.
"Maybe even two hundred years."

Substantial, sure. But I laughed. In Oregon and in California, our "old forests" are eternal, timeless bastions of nature, strangers to industry. Individual trees are thousands of years old, and as tall as cathedral towers.

Maybe history isn't progress so much as a territory trade, a flip-flop of a timeline. One or the other's not really old, it's only the exchange of one well of time for another.