BRANCHES OF OUR LIVES

Tree stories from the listeners of Australia’s ABC Radio National

Deeply personal experiences from the treehugger in all of us.

THE WIND TREE

By Erica Riley “Let’s go!” my sister cried, as we dropped our school bags onto the doorstep. Hot, bothered, yet adventurous, I followed. We would always run, my sister and I, amongst the grass, haystacks and swooping magpies. But we had our favourite place.

All the way across our property to the back fence stood the wind tree. The tallest tree we had ever seen in our whole young lives, the leaves would make a whistling sound when wind met it, making it magical. You had to be oh-so-very quiet, to hear the wind tree bond with us. The stringy leaves were so long that you could braid them if you wanted. Sometimes, when you went alone to the wind tree and listened, it would talk in whispers – sitting up in the highest branches we could reach, pulling at the rope that had a bucket tied to the handle with after-school snacks inside, you could hear it. The wind tree always talked more when my sister and I would play with her, always creating a beautiful song for us. I always knew the wind tree sang songs of friendship. She loved us, and we her, our wind tree.

CITRUS AND SAFE

By Elizabeth McQueen My parents had decided to separate. My dad moved to East Hawthorn.

The house was strange and foreign to me. It smelt of other people and other lives.

My father, alone, was never really able to impose his own scent.

In the backyard, in the middle of the typical suburban square, I found something familiar – a fragrance that mixed with the heat rising from the cracked concrete. Here I could find a safe, known childhood place, under the lemon tree.

MY HEART TREE

By Alex Tewes My tree is twelve thousand kilometres away. It is a walnut that grows by the kitchen of my family’s holiday house in the mountains of Córdoba, Argentina. That tree is my heart tree. Its story is the story of my family.

My tree was already there when my grandmother received the house as a wedding present in 1911.

My tree was mature when my father was born in that house in 1923. He was one of seven brothers and sisters who grew up, lived and loved around the tree. They are almost all gone now.

I played under its branches during our annual holidays. It was like a symbol of stability for us while the country where we lived destroyed itself with regular bouts of military dictatorship and political incompetence.

We migrated to Australia in 1973. I was fifteen years old and all I saw was a shining future. But I remembered my tree.

My tree was still there in 2004 when I visited with my Australian wife. She thought it odd that I hugged my tree

on our last day there. We will visit it at least once more, and will sit under its branches and talk – about history, about love, and about trees.

THE MUMMY TREE

By Jennifer Forest My daughter started school this year and has found herself a little fish in a very big pond. The hugs are tight in the morning when she says goodbye and she fears that Mummy may not be there to pick her up in the afternoon. So after a few stressful days, I found a tree in the playground close to her classroom. I’ve called it the mummy tree. And every day when I drop her off, I tell her I’ll be waiting at the mummy tree at the end of the day.

In the afternoon I make a mad dash up the road to her school, walking very quickly to make sure I’m standing at the mummy tree before the bell goes off. The mummy tree appears to be working. I’m at the tree. She sees me there every afternoon. Each day she gets used to the routine and appears a little bit happier each time.

The tree’s nothing special, not yet anyway. It is only recently planted – in one of those wire maroon fences to protect it from the ravages of footballs and climbing kids. But I’m sure it will be the mummy tree for many months to come, for us and, I hope, other children and parents into the future too.

NEVER TOO OLD TO CLIMB A TREE

Kathy Burns There is nothing more compelling than a “climbable” tree. The taller the better!

Growing up in India I had access to numerous climbing trees. Mango, tamarind, poincianas … just for starters. I prided myself on the fact that I could out- climb most of the children in the neighbourhood including the local boys. Imag in e my dismay when my older sisters came home from boarding school and would no longer join me in the treetops. In my eyes, it was all that stuck- up, grown- up stuff that went with shaving legs and plucking eyebrows. I promised myself then that I would never grow up. I would climb trees every year for the rest of my life. Womanhood was not for me!

Last year my wonderful husband joined me up a mango tree on my 50th birthday. We shared a packet of M& M’s and a bottle of Bundaberg Sarsaparilla. He respectfully stayed a few branches below me. I

We will sit under its branches and talk – about history, about love and about trees

am pleased to say that I have two daughters who also know the joys to be found in treetops. I have discovered that I can shave my legs, pluck my eyebrows and still climb trees.

SECRETS IN THE SAP

By Mark Sargeant When I was growing up, we had a copper beech tree at the end of our garden. Its lowest branches were a perfect height for climbing. When I needed space for my thoughts, I would climb my way up unt il I was out of sight. I would sit on a branch worn smooth by my sitting, and watch birds squabble between themselves, and watch passers-by on the adjacent road. Their conversations would filter through the branches like sunlight.

My forehead would rest on the tree’s bark for a while, then I’d climb higher, secure in the knowledge that the tree was holding me; its benevolent presence reassuring, sol id, permanent . On a windy day I’d enjoy the feeling of movement around me, its branches holding me tight. The tree held my secrets for me. My whispers would seep into its sap, travel upwards in spring and then drop with its falling bronzed leaves in autumn. I knew the paths that the tree took in its journey towards the sky, in its many arms; it knew the weight of my words, the weight of my body.

Eventually we moved out of the house and left the tree behind, a witness to my youth.

The tree held my secrets for me. My whispers would seep into its sap, travelling upwards in spring