There is a jacaranda tree in my street I used to climb when I was a kid. It was a familiar landmark on my walk home from school, and it used to fascinate me watching how it changed with the seasons and the years. For a period, I tried to take a photo of it from the same angle every few days I passed it, hoping to compile a time lapse, but I must have abandoned the project at some point. Perhaps because the day to day progress was so slow and unremarkable that I lost interest.
That's the truth of growth though. From one day to the next, change is imperceptible. But when taken from a distance, remarkable observations can be made. If I dig up one of those old photos and compare it to the tree today, I'm sure it is greatly changed.
I saw a different, younger jacaranda tree on a recent walk through my streets. She was short, reaching her branches to one side, with a handful of blossoms and leaves. She seemed unsure of herself. A bit scrawny. Blind to her potential.
Having watched the tree in my street, year upon year, I see what she can't. I know that she will keep blooming, season after season, until she realises it is natural for her. Until it becomes expected, and not a sought after event. She will become older and wiser and her branches will one day be heavy with flowering. And that will not be unusual. It will not be unexpected. It will not be effortful. The blossoms will appear year upon year because they are part of her, part of the cycles of her growing.
But for now, for her, it is a treasured thing, a thing that feels rare and special and like something she needs to hold on to and reach for.
I know it is who she is.
Perhaps she looks at the gum trees and wishes she could also reach the sky to touch the stars. But that feels like far too improbable a thing to grow into. So solid in their footing, it’s hard to imagine they don’t just start out with thick trunks and established roots.
But every tree is a sapling at some point, no matter how formidable it grows to be. Even gum trees have beginnings.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that sometimes we need to trust the process. To look to those ahead of us not in despair but in hope that we will grow to stand among them in our own small way. To look back to our sapling beginnings and smile at the flowers that have already graced our branches. To revisit the abandoned time lapse project of our own growth with a wider perspective to see how much we've already grown and changed. And to trust that our roots will keep strengthening and our branches extending towards the sun.
