Change of season
some things will not run on your clock
The jacarandas have stopped blooming, and they have shaken out their purple sherbet yield for suburban Sydneysiders. Their petals turn into mulch or otherwise after a particularly heavy rain, the prop of a practical joke that cause you to slip and squelch down the street.
Even though the jacaranda is a South American tree, it is so iconic in Sydney we have a Christmas carol which I have never heard that croons “When the bloom of the jacaranda tree is here, Christmas time is near”. As we walked down the jacaranda-lined street, A turned to me and said, “My high school teacher used to always say that when you saw the jacarandas bloom,” (and he did pause for dramatic effect) “it meant it was too late to start studying.” I confirmed with J later that at UNSW some students referred to them as “the failing trees” in Chinese.
I met with some old school friends for the first time in years the other day and one said “Don’t you find it pretty depressing that we’re adults who talk about the jacaranda trees now?”, and we did adult things like eat honey-glazed chicken with vegetables and have tea time, and schoolmate things like reminisce about our Japanese teacher. Old names drifted through conversation, sparking a light in some dim, dusty corner of memory.
I don’t find it depressing to be an adult who talks about the jacaranda trees, but one thing that does feel starkly ‘adult’ is the experience of reliving memories of schoolmates who are no longer around, with no memories to create nor ways to outpace our flawed remembering. It is funny how deeply things can have totally different meanings to different people.
Admittedly for the last few years, the month of December signifies something upsetting to my body, which makes movement slow and heavy. I do not perceive it as pathology but simply a season to outlast.
I have found that we all have seasons, a fact that is not well taught. It is probably a conspiracy of both raw capitalism and naive childhood (they indeed have things in common).
The way we work human bodies like machines to optimise utilisation, and resist eating at the mercy of our true seasons with technological and logistical ingenuity, maybe on some level teaches us that everything should be available all of the time: fruit, productivity, happiness. Utilitarian abundance is wonderful, as much as it is also cheapening.
In childhood, time is a lake that is infinitely long and deep in which to swim. The surface of it looks still and unchanging, and memories collect and merge freely.
As I grow up I walk from its lake to its river, and it takes labour to hold onto anything passing through its changing course. It takes observation, studying, and testing to know its currents, to know what days to fish and wash my face, what days to make a raft, and what days to walk away.
The seasons themselves are not always a constant, for good and bad. The ripening window for my favourite olives has narrowed rapidly. I will have a season of Decembers being difficult, that will narrow and narrow until it has emptied out all of its history and vitality.
But also, many things stay the same. I have a tattoo of an olive branch on my forearm, which signifies forgiveness; mostly self-forgiveness, as other-forgiveness comes very easily to me. Every time I see my mum she flips over my forearm and asks, “Is that permanent?”, and I laugh and tell her she asks me the same question every time.
All constancy, even annoyance, is comforting. All change, even good, is deeply disturbing. Somehow this wheel keeps turning, predictable, surprising, delightful, heartbreaking at every turn.
I can’t explain why, but I’m reminded of a Buddhist story: a monk is on his deathbed, and his peers and students surround him. They have taken him to a quiet room looking out over a meadow. His companions ask him if he has any final words, he says “Yes, I do”, begins to cry a little and says, “The flowers are so beautiful”, and then he dies.
Go gently through your own seasons,
Marlene
Three things I loved in November:
Riverine by Kavita Bedford
I Grant You Refuge by Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada
What pollutes our minds by poet and harpist Ying Chin
"All constancy, even annoyance, is comforting. All change, even good, is deeply disturbing."
When people used to live more in tune with the seasons (probably before indoor heating/AC), you'd live your life feeling slightly uncomfortable all the time. Like feeling uncomfortably cold the second you switch off the shower, or hot whenever the fan turns its head away. When I was a kid in my non-heated classroom, I dreaded taking my hands out of my pocket constantly. It's an incredible luxury to expect your surroundings to be comfortable all the time, and the cost is electricity and energy of course. We're spoiled by constancy. But it's so addictive it's no wonder we devote so much to achieve it.
Love it!
Alice
I always quietly admired your eloquence and insight back in high school (and beyond), and now I get the joy of reading your thoughts. Much enjoyed, write a book and I’ll buy it!