The Bird In The Pine Tree

Everything is ceremony in the wild garden of childhood.

Pablo Neruda

Hey, Lovelies.

Were you ever fascinated with something when you were little?

One of my loves was a white enamel serving bowl with a blue Scandinavian Folk Art pattern on the outside. It showed pine trees in silhouette, and some of those trees had a single bird perched on the very top, like the feathery star of a Christmas tree. I was mesmerised by those birds, even though it seemed a contrivance. We didn’t have trees like that anywhere, although I looked for them. We had gum trees and jacarandas and scrubby wattles. There was no tree with a pointy top. Our trees were lopsided and anyhow-shaped, and the birds settled in them messily, or disappeared into them so I could not tell bird from tree.

Now I am grown up, and, unexpectedly, I find myself living in a treehouse. There is a forest right outside my door, and in that forest there are tall pine trees that reach up towards the sky.

The first night I slept in my new bed, in my new home, I woke before dawn, and I looked out of my bedroom window, over the tops of the trees. The trees were in silhouette, the sun still not risen enough in the world to afford them any colour. They were dark inky blue, against a pale sky that was almost white.

A pied currawong flew onto the smallest branch of the highest tree, right at the very top, and turned to face the rising sun.

Suddenly that Scandi Folk Art scene came back to me. Here was my favourite image from childhood, made real.

Every morning now I look for that currawong as he takes up his position, ready to sing in the new day. I take so much pleasure in this recreation of that childhood memory.

To me, it is the most precious of gifts.

Isn’t life wonderful in so many unexpected ways?

Love, pine needles and bird song, Nicole xx