Before the moment is gone I must celebrate with you. It is a cooler, drier start to the day after weeks of high temps and humidity. I’m one of these highly sensitive people who, like Goldilocks relaxes best when things are not too hot or too cold…or too humid. I’m sure I’m painful to live with, so bless my husband for his tolerance of 40 years. I have really pushed myself to extend the boundaries of comfort but if I’m honest it has just never changed. What has changed is my realisation and ability to work with it. Worthy a goal as this is, it is not what I celebrate.
I have lived in this place, this town, this house longer than I lived anywhere else in my life. But this is also not that which I celebrate.
I celebrate renewal. Despite age and ennui, the sight of this gum tree and the nearby moon yesterday renewed a deep sense of joy and hope. I have walked passed this tree many times on my morning walks over the 24 years we have lived here. I have never not admired its perfect balance and asymmetry, the way it reflects the light, how it has survived the ravages of storms tearing at her branches.
I have begun calling the tree, ‘her’. She is also ‘my tree’, though I do nothing to assist her life and certainly she is not in my yard. But I have admired her, painted her and sent all the good energies to her over many years. I first realised how attached I was to her after the storm we had nearly 15 months ago. Many of her branches were ripped off and scattered across the rocky outcrop. It was more devastating in person than in photos.
I should have had more faith that she would survive and renew. And this is also what I am realising. We are surviving and renewing and looking forward after a stormy year.
Tomorrow we begin the third phase of Don’s cancer treatment in Adelaide. I’ll miss my tree but I carry her in my heart. My tree and her moon forever in my heart.
ardysez 
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