由此向东五米外 eastwards, five meters away Part Ⅱ

转过年来，我对树木的痴迷还没有完结，而我生病了。我开始越来越严重的咳嗽，被一种类似变异性哮喘的慢性病侵蚀着，呼吸不畅夜不能寐，于是，在整个自闭且心绪不宁的漫长冬天里，我都在缓慢地整理着这些树木的照片，从无畏不屈的植物身上获取力量。“由此向东五米外”中树木的照片是我在城市里游荡，在几近硬化的土地上寻找的浪漫。

这浪漫来自呵护和控制的双重矛盾，也是树木对荒谬的人类物质介入的包容，更是树木对抗禁锢迸发的与生俱来不可抑制的生命力……那些看似不完美的枝丫打动着我，它们似乎也映射着我们的处境，照见生活的影子。

在树木面前，人的寿命是微不足道的，记忆也更加短暂。我有时会幻想，那些树的年轮会无差别的记载周遭的所有信息，事无巨细的将自己连同这世界的悲喜苦痛刻在身体上，由此才变得高大壮实且不朽。即使被砍伐而陨落，记忆的截面也会毫不掩饰，历历在目。时间流淌冬去春来，即使有一天所有人都忘记了，树也会记得一切，记得这些风雨，记得生命的意义。

The year turned, and my obsession with trees had not yet run its course—and then I fell ill. I began to cough more and more severely, eroded by a chronic condition resembling variant asthma. I could not breathe smoothly and could not sleep at night. So, throughout that long, self-enclosed winter of restlessness and unease, I slowly sorted through these photographs of trees, drawing strength from these unyielding, indomitable plants. The photographs of trees in “Eastwards, Five Meters Away" are the romance I found while wandering through the city, searching on nearly concreted land.

This romance comes from the dual contradiction of care and control; it is also the tolerance of trees toward the absurd intrusions of human materiality, and all the more the irrepressible vitality inherent in trees as they burst forth against confinement... Those seemingly imperfect branches and twigs moved me. They seemed to mirror our own circumstances, showing the mirages of life.

Before trees, human lifespans are utterly insignificant, and memories are even more fleeting. I sometimes fantasize that the growth rings of those trees record all the surrounding information without discrimination, meticulously engraving themselves—along with the joys, sorrows, and sufferings of this world—onto their bodies, and only thereby becoming tall, sturdy, and immortal. Even if they are felled and fall, the cross-section of memory will lay everything bare and vivid. As time flows and winter gives way to spring, even if one day everyone forgets, the trees will still remember everything—remember these winds and rains, remember the meaning of life.