Jacaranda Dreaming.

This morning, I had a passionate affair with my Jacaranda tree. Different, I know…especially as I’m not usually one of those tree-hugging types. However, being Spring, all that pollen must’ve gone to my head.

Our Jacaranda tree has exploded into a luscious canopy of mauve flowers. It really is sensational. You can also see quite a few patches of mauve around town, which is rather uplifting when I’m driving around in Mum’s  Taxi. For a crazy photographer like me, this is like spotting candy beside the road. Yahoo!

Of course, if you know anything about Jacaranda trees, their beauty isn’t confined to the sky either. There’s also a pretty mauve carpet all over the grass. Indeed, as we “speak”, there are even a few stray flowers scattered all over my sleeping dogs.

After all, when it comes to dropping flowers and leaves, the Jacaranda tree is incredibly generous.

Anyway, this morning when I went outside to photograph the sunflower seedlings, I detoured via the Jacaranda Tree. I started roaming underneath the branches looking for an angle, a perspective with my eagle eye. This was a bit tricky as my neck was quite stiff and I really had to crank it up. After a few minutes, I decided to put together a range of perspectives. I love interpreting things from different angles and seeing them through fresh eyes.  AND… these fluttering purple flowers, really were dazzling, awakening my senses and my soul.

While photographing a tree in your own backyard can feel rather hum drum, it is convenient. Besides, the funny thing is that while I might find my backyard boring, it could well be paradise to someone living on the other side of the world. That being the case, I’d much rather invite you over than the neighbours, who’ll just notice my junk.

Anyway, as soon as I point my camera at the tree, I’ve been transformed. There’s that very real sense of being sucked inside my lens. That I’m concentrating absolutely all my being and focus onto those flowers. Of course, I could call them “the subject”, but I’m not writing a university essay. Rather, I’m sharing a passion which goes beyond definitions, boundaries or even words. It’s this sense of being so consumed by what I’m seeing, that I’ve become one with it. Our boundaries have merged.

It’s a beautiful thing.

After taking the photos, I returned to my desk to download the images. By the way, my desk would look right out onto the garden if the blinds weren’t down. I know that sounds like a waste but even though it’s only Spring, the sun’s intense.

So, while I was sitting there feasting on images, I could sense a strange scratching on the back of my head. It was very much like one of my dogs scratching on the back door. No, it wasn’t nits. It was finally the muse. While I should be quite attuned to this after many years of writing poetry and turning myself inside-out through verse, I was surprised. It’s been awhile since I’ve written a poem and to be perfectly honest, I was trying to squeeze in a nap. However, as I’m sure you know yourselves, the muse doesn’t care whether you’re ready or not. She simply turns up on a whim and you have to jump or she’ll pass your spark onto someone else. The muse can be a heartless sod.

So, of course, the muse won out!

This poem is about peering through my long zoom lens trying to get a close-up of the jacaranda flowers while they’re moving in the wind. In case you haven’t used a “real” camera, long lenses do not like movement, unless of course you’re going for the blurry look. To be honest, trying to photograph these flowers, reminded me of trying to photograph kids. They can be impossible! Anyway, the poem developed its own twists and turns from there, taking on a life of its own…as it usually does.

Anyway, here’s the poem:

 Blurred through the lens,

purple skirts fluttering in the breeze,

the jacaranda flowers giggle like little girls,

caught up in their sequined twirls.

Eyes to me!

Stand still!

Smile!

 Look at the camera!

Yet, they won’t listen.

Can’t hear.

My pleas are falling flat

on deaf ears.

Oblivious to the lens,

they’re entranced by

the Spirit of Dance.

She moves among them

without a sound,

shaking their shackles free.

Liberated,

they take flight,

finally pirouetting out of sight,

leaving their seeds behind.

I wonder where they will sleep tonight…

these dazzling purple butterflies

fluttering in the sunlight

taking my heart.

 2.

All too soon,

the seeds scatter away from the tree,

falling deep into the starving Earth.

Almost on auto-pilot,

they raise their arms through the soil,

no longer seeds but trees.

They’re growing strong.

Growing tall.

Standing firm against the wind.

Fresh flowers fall from their limbs

year after year,

as the cycle of life goes on.

It’s hard to believe

these trees ever danced free,

flying along on the fragrant winds,

now that they’ve been firmly planted.

Indeed, you could probably say

the same of me.

Yet, I was also once a girl.

A girl twirling in her ballet skirt

learning to dance,

soaring on the brink of flight.

 Rowena Curtin 7^th November, 2016

Crooked and free-flowing, there’s something refreshing about the Jacaranda’s maze of twisting branches.

 

Do you have a favourite tree in your garden? I’d love to hear about it.

xx Rowena

PS I’m still wishing I could find Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree and climb to the very top and disappear for a bit. Wouldn‘t it be great?!!

 

Short-Sighted Time.

If you’re not short-sighted, then no doubt you’ve already worked out that my clock radio is upside down.

However, to be perfectly honest with you, it took awhile for me to work it out. That’s because I’m so short-sighted without my glasses, that I can’t even see the numbers at all. The screen is blank.

As for how my clock radio ended lying belly up like this, the answer is simple. I couldn’t sleep and found the light from the LCD screen annoying. So, I pushed the clock out of the way in the dark, and it could well have taken a swan dive off the back of the chest of drawers and that’s probably how it ended up upside down.

Why it stayed upside down and undisturbed is a bit more complicated. My only defense is that when you’re as blind as a bat without your glasses, it doesn’t really matter as long as the alarm goes off. My alarm just happens to be my husband, followed by the two dogs who he sends in to wake me up with this enthusiastic: “Where’s Mum?” Bilbo is so proud of himself for finding me too. Lady may turn up eventually in which case, she’s usually madly wagging her tail.

The other possibility is that I’m some kind of topsy turvy character out of Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree who likes walking upside down on their hands.

Something tells me that short-sightedness is the better explanation.

xx Rowena

PS With my alarm clock upside down, chances are that my glasses have fallen on the floor and it can be very humbling feeling the floor with my fingertips trying to find them!

Our Magic Climbing Tree in Byron Bay

How many of us had Enid Blyton’s Folk of the Magic Faraway Tree read to us when we were young? Listening wide-eyed as they climbed up past Moonface, hopefully avoiding Madam Washalot and finally reaching the cloud at the top of the tree, wondering which land would be there today? What fabulous adventures lay ahead? I know my imagination was working overtime. Actually, it wasn’t my imagination because as a six year old, The Magic Faraway Tree was real and indeed could have been at the back of my own garden in suburban Sydney.

The Magic Faraway Tree.

“I don’t believe in things like that – fairies or brownies or magic or anything. It’s old-fashioned.’
‘Well, we must be jolly old-fashioned then,’ said Bessie. ‘Because we not only believe in the Faraway Tree and love our funny friends there, but we go to see them too – and we visit the lands at the top of the Tree as well!”
― Enid Blyton, The Folk of the Faraway Tree

The Faraway Children With Moonface.

While I don’t remember actually trying to find the Magic Faraway Tree itself, I do remember trying to find that perfect climbing tree. Being knee-high to a grasshopper, all the branches were too high and I still haven’t forgotten the frustration and disappointed heartache when I was stuck on the ground…especially when older kids had made it up!.Ouch! I still contend that I was meant to be a bird. However, in keeping with my poor sense of direction, I must have joined the wrong queue and somehow became a person instead! Yet, I still feel the makings of wings, of song and a bird’s eye perspective in my heart. This thing of being stuck on the ground still doesn’t feel right.

Our Magic Climbing Tree lives in the Railway Park in Byron Bay. I believe it is a kind of fig and occasionally we’ve seen it covered in yellow flowers but a Google search hasn’t helped me identify the tree in any further detail. However, what makes our climbing tree particularly special and extra climbable is that the tree was somehow damaged and knocked over and so instead of growing up, it’s growing on its side, which make it so easy for little people to find a footing and go climbing among the leaves and dream.

“remember what had happened. ‘I’ll just peep up through the hole in the cloud and see”
― Enid Blyton, The Magic Faraway Tree Collection: 3 Books in 1

Naturally, for a child reared on Enid Blyton, our climbing tree reminds me of the Magic Faraway Tree. I watch the children climb up and disappear in its branches and find little hidden treasures and I remember that cloud at the top of the tree and all those revolving lands and I wonder if we could just climb high enough, where we would end up.

“Folks—please, please read this book. Not because it’s about Happy Children and Delightful Tree Folk. Not because it’s about Queer Lands and Strange Spells. Not even because it’s about White Clouds, Slippery Slips and Jersey Wearing Cushion Carrying Red Squirrels. But because it’s time to stop growing up, and grow down just this once; to cast aside the reality of a world that is so material, and even more cynical, and thus enter the Delightful Magic of a Blyton Dimension, one in which Silky the Fairy will haunt you wth her beauty, Saucepan Man will deafen you with his noise, and Moonface will overwhelm you with his beaming smile. And if you have to endure an occasional kettle of water or dirty washing all over you… well, it’s worth it.”

http://www.enidblyton.net/others/the-magic-faraway-tree.html

The other special thing about our magic climbing tree is that it gets things hung and drawn on its branches. I’m not talking about glitzy fairy lights but people leave little bits and pieces in the tree, which creates that experience of the unexpected. Every time we go to the tree, I wonder what’s going to be there today just like the changing world of the Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree. We’re found empty milk crates dangling upside down on rope like a sculpture, a stuffed toy dog and sunflowers thumb-tacked to the trunk. Reminiscent of Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree, there have also been ribbons in the tree.

We’ve also met many fascinating and intriguing characters under the tree and in the park. Although we haven’t Madam Washalot, Saucepan or the children, we’ve met a variety of travellers, including those who are “living free”. There’s a bit of that around Byron Bay and in the park but council is taking action and confiscating tents etc. Communities groups also come to the park and feed the homeless, which has also included us a few times this week and we truly appreciated it. It was lovely to be looked after! Some times you really need that bit of TLC and community care. You appreciate a breather and my cough certainly hasn’t been letting up.

Mister’s Sunflower painting 2015.

On this trip, we ran into Mama Dee again who was running a Free Art in the Park program. The kids did a few beautiful and inspired paintings while I chalked the pavements, thinking back to my days as a student politician writing chalk slogans around the footpaths of Sydney University. Dee’s son passed away in the park a few years ago and she has been committed to helping young people find their way.

Art in the Park, January 2012.

Although Byron Bay has it’s breathtaking, postcard beauty, it has it’s underbelly. Young people in particular turn here not just for the surf but also for answers or place to turn when life is spiraling out of control and there’s seemingly no way out of the maze. When your life has no particular destination, Byron Bay somehow is somewhere to go. Find other seekers and that merging of souls can be a precarious mix. There needs to be somewhere to turn at such times and Dee is going her bit…along with local Churches and community groups. the Adventist Church across the road has been running a soup kitchen across the road for many years. Too many young people are falling through the cracks.

Painted onto one of the park benches in Railway Park, a dedication to all the young people who have suicided in the region.

We also spotted what looked like a full-blooded Dingo in the park. I’ve never seen a Dingo outside a zoo before and while it seemed friendly enough and was some kind of community pet, I wasn’t entirely comfortable. Dingoes haven’t had good press in the past.

My tea cup in the park. These “grannie cups” remind me of talking, listening, sharing…taking time for each other. We could all used another cup of tea.

While I’m here, I should also mention that the council has put up some new, very touristy toilets in the park. Something called an Ezyloo, which is pretty space aged. I’ve been to one in North Sydney and thought it was incredible but Byron Bay is Byron and I’ve always enjoyed reading the philosophical graffiti on the walls of the toilets here. Strangely, a robotic voice telling me I have 10 minutes to do my business isn’t quite the same…even if it does play “love sweet love”.

Graffiti on the wall, Railway Park, 2009.

Philosophy adorning the toilet wall.

Do you have any memories of Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree Series? Or, perhaps some great stories of climbing trees, falling out of trees etc?

Hope you are having a good week!

xx Rowena

Stairways to Heaven: Stockholm, Sweden.

Don’t you just feel like climbing up these stairs would like you on some kind of magical mystery journey through the clouds to the sort of mysterious lands which were found at the top of Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree?

xx Rowena

inte fan gör det det

heaven!

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