If you grew up in North Carolina, you might remember this from childhood. One of the assignments in middle school was to collect, identify, and preserve tree leaves in a binder. Little did I know at the time, this simple project would have a subtle impact on my life.
The collection of leaves needed for the assignment was fairly standard and not too difficult to find. They wanted leaves from a dogwood, birch, oak, maple, sweet gum, hickory, and tulip poplar trees. I walked to middle school back then, so it was easy to collect most of them along the way.
It was 1986, and the internet wasn’t even a thing yet. All research came from books you could find in the library or at home. This mattered, because I was missing one leaf—the Ginkgo.
The Ginkgo leaf, shaped like a fan and native to China, became my challenge. I searched for weeks without success. Eventually, my mum heard through a coworker that the University of North Carolina at Charlotte had Ginkgo trees on campus. We made the trip, found the tree, and I completed the project. I got an A.
Fast forward to 2001.
By then, my career had taken me from North Carolina to Pennsylvania, though I returned to Charlotte throughout the year to visit my brother and parents. On one of those visits, I noticed my mum had a new coffee mug. It had been made by a student at UNCC and picked up during the International Festival that year.
That mug quickly became my favorite whenever I visited home.
It was covered in Ginkgo leaves.
On a later visit, my mum noticed I always reached for that same mug and asked why. I told her it reminded me of the day we went looking for that Ginkgo tree when I was in middle school. That memory had stayed with me.
She gave me the mug that day.
I’ve used it ever since—weekly, sometimes more. After she passed, it meant even more. What was once just a mug had quietly become something irreplaceable.
Over the years, the Ginkgo has continued to appear in unexpected ways.
At one point, I was laid off from work, and a friend invited me to stay with him in Phoenix, Arizona while I searched for a new job. I arrived late at night and settled in. The next morning, I looked out the window—and there it was.
A Ginkgo tree.
I remember smiling, feeling a quiet sense that things were going to be okay.
Something similar happened years later in St. Louis while I was searching for a new apartment.
The Ginkgo leaf has mapped a memory—from my mum and me in Charlotte, to my time in Pennsylvania, to moments of uncertainty in Arizona and Missouri. It has appeared when I wasn’t looking for it, and when I needed it most.
I once searched for that leaf to complete an assignment.
Somewhere along the way, it began finding me.