I don't know which is the more important event happening today: the Melbourne Cup or the US election. They say that the Cup is the 'race that stops a nation' but I suspect most of the world is holding its breath to see, instead, what results from the idiocy that has overtaken the USA. How 'the world's greatest democracy' as they like to call themselves could seriously consider Trump as an appropriate leader is beyond me. There was a movie years ago called The Gods Must be Crazy. Maybe it's time for a remake.
Marilyn is meeting up with other Ladies Who Lunch at the Carrick Hotel today and is rummaging around in her wardrobe to find an appropriate fascinator to wear. Apparently, it's de rigueur to wear something on your head at a Melbourne Cup do. Who would have thought!
My heart sank when I found I had to write about A Tree in a Meadow but here is the result
A TREE IN A MEADOW 24 March, 2023
If you saw it for the first time,
you would say it was a tree, just a tree, a nondescript tree in a meadow. It would be surprising if you paid this
particular tree any unusual attention but that’s because very few people know
the story of what makes this tree special.
I know because I’ve lived in the house across from this same meadow and
I know the true story of why this tree in this meadow is different from other
trees.
When we were kids, this tree was
a favourite place for our games. It
wasn’t a very big tree but little kids could still hide behind its trunk and
play tricks on their friends. On warm
days we had picnics in its shade and, when we were older, we climbed into its
branches and tied ropes to them to make swings.
We used whatever we could find to make cubby-houses around its base and,
in our imagination it was a stagecoach, a World War II destroyer and a racing
car. There was no end to the ways in
which this tree became the focus of our games.
One day, soon after my 16th
birthday, I carved a heart into the bark of the tree and inscribed the initials
of the girl whose face filled my dreams.
I took my courage in both hands and invited her to walk with me through
the meadow and contrived to wander beneath the branches of the tree until she
was confronted by my clumsy scratchings.
I don’t know what I expected; perhaps, that she would squeeze my hand
(in my imagination, we were holding hands as we walked along), simper (I
thought I knew what simpering was) and say how lovely it was that I had
expressed my feelings in that way.
However, it didn’t work out
exactly as I had hoped. She didn’t even
see the carving even though I had stopped directly in front of it, and I was
forced to point it out to her. To my
horror, she burst out laughing.
“Oh, William,” she giggled. “How ridiculous. What were you thinking?” And
she laughed. Yes, she laughed.
I was shocked at her reaction and
even more upset when she went on to say how disappointed she was that I had
desecrated this glorious tree.
Desecrated? What I had done was a
gesture of my affection for her and an expression of my hope that we could
possibly have a life together. There was
not much hope of that now. How could I
possibly have anything to do with someone who threw my expressions of love back
in my face?
We didn’t speak much on the way
back to her home; in fact, I said goodbye to her at the corner and let her walk
the last hundred yards on her own.
The next day, I borrowed some of
Dad’s tools from the shed and erased as much of the heart from the tree as
possible. It made a bit of a mess and I
felt a little bit guilty but I was determined that there would be nothing left
to remind people of my embarrassment. I
avoided the tree after that. At 16, I
was involved in other activities and I’m sure I never even ventured into that
meadow again. That is until the day
after my eighteenth birthday.
I’d had a few drinks with my
friends the night before and was resting my sore head by sleeping in when I was
awakened by the sound of police cars in the street outside. I staggered to the window and saw the
revolving lights on the roofs of the police cars and heard the shouts of what
seemed like dozens of police officers running across the meadow. They surrounded a tree - my tree - and
shouted at something, someone (?) in the branches. Soon, a dishevelled figure
dropped to the ground. He was quickly
overpowered, handcuffed and led away to one of the cars.
I watched the TV news later to
get the details of what had happened.
Apparently, this fugitive had held up a local service station at gun
point, and escaped on foot. The police
were called and given the information that he was hiding in the branches of
what some of the locals, apparently, had taken to calling the Lover’s
Tree. The police spokesman said they
could identify the tree because of the damage to the bark caused by a
disappointed lover who had his romantic advances rejected.
I’m older now and the feeling of
embarrassment has faded but that tree will always be special to me, for a whole
host of reasons.
