Be there, be here

For nearly a year now I have been driving past this tree on day trips into the Megalong Valley. Each time I look forward to seeing this tree, each time I savour the brief moment when I see it, and each time when I am passed it I wish I had stopped and taken a photo. But alas, even though the road is not hugely busy there is nowhere to stop on this bend, and there are big shiny-piped trucks chugging along the windy road.

On my second to last trip to the valley, I started to think that soon I will not see the tree and that this could even be the last time. So I stopped. Mid road. Mid bend. And I took a photo from my car.

Silly me.

I had been hoping for a sneaky ‘yesss, I got it’ moment, a little smug perhaps…however immediately afterwards I felt guilty that I had been so stupid, and to top it off the photo wasn’t even good. There was a wire across the sky, it was blurry, the composition was all wrong. Photo fail.

Sometimes you just have to be there.

To be honest I should’ve known that no photo could do this tree justice. My obsession with capturing it was because I felt I was losing something, and wouldn’t be able to sit and stare at an image of it and reminisce. Moments passing the tree were always so fleeting and I wanted to hold the image (it was the closest I could get to the tree) and study it, relive the moment. But it was more than a moment, more than a visual, the three represented big emotions and meaning – personal growth, meaning, dedication, care, nature, slowness, space. I was definitely holding on to more than the tree.

When I was a kid with glasses, I used to take them off when I saw something amazing – be it a sunset, a pretty bird, the cast taking a bow at the end of a west end show. I felt that I needed to soak up the beauty and heartfelt emotion directly into my eyes, not via the clear glass of my spectacles. I needed get as close as possible to what I loved to see. Same with this tree.

If I close my eyes I can see the tree on the top of the undulating hills, I can see the blue sky, the windy road, I know exactly where it is on the vast open landscape. If I go back in 5 years, even 25 years, I will still find this tree. This makes me feel very connected to the land. I feel humbled.

Last week I felt a similar connection to the land. I had been searching for months for ‘wave rock’ which I had heard about when I read some information about an artwork. I saw the artwork, a kingfisher by Thomas Jackson the week that my dad passed away. He loved birds, especially kingfishers. I hadn’t realised that they were local to the area and wished I could’ve told my dad. Instead I went and sat near the river on what I call ‘dad rock’. A place where I go to think about him, or think about myself. Anyway, last week I googled wave rock (again) and followed some new links and finally emailed a group of volunteers who help clean up the river and who met at wave rock back in March. They responded and told me vaguely where it was. Next day I went out jogging and found it. And to my amazement, it isn’t dad rock, but it is a body of rock that lies in the grassy slope directly behind dad rock. Almost hugging dad rock.

Sometimes you just have to be there.

And sometimes you are already there.

Love Stripes & Trees xxx