Observations of an oak tree
I am the oak tree in question.
I'm not being melodramatic about my age. In fact, my oak tree theory couldn't be further from that kind of mindset. It's an analogy of sorts, of the life experience and age and wisdom as we move through our journeys.
In our childhood, our adolescence and our 20s, there are many milestones that we approach and pass in quite a short amount of time. For example, we turn 10, then 13, then 16, then 18, 21 and then 25. We complete various aspects of education before moving onto the next stage all within these years. Many of us begin working and may move around from weekend job to part-time before getting our grown up jobs at some point in our early to mid-20s. And of course, inevitably, many a heart make and many a heart break within this rapid river ride. It feels chaotic, exciting and intense for a person to experience all of these things almost all at the same time.
And then suddenly, you are quickly approaching your 30s with a level of consistency that seems unfamiliar but is most welcome.
Daily routines actually remain daily, for the most part. We know we will go to sleep and wake up around the same time most days. A certain lull of relative familiarity carries us through whilst we feel a little more rooted. The newness of change becomes less frequent and we start to wear our wisdom with grace.
Feet firm on the ground.
I have worked with children and young people since my early 20s. I also have a very large family in which I have babysat and cared for many babies, tots and pre-teens through my own teen years through to my mid-20s. I was 29 when I left youth work and secondary education and generally had less contact with kids and young people.
I often take moments to sit within a sphere of stillness, to reflect and take stock of my life experiences so far. I look left and right and step outside of my own world for a minute. I thoroughly inspect who and what remains in my world.
When I did this in my early 30s, I had a very deep feeling of being so rooted within the soil of my own life and looking up to see how everything around me had changed up until then. It's then that I saw how all the kids I had babysat, mentored and coached were no longer little. They were graduating from university, working full-time jobs as professionals, getting married, living in their own places or even, moving abroad.
I, who had not obviously changed much for a while, felt very ancient. But not in a way that I lamented for my lost youth. I felt ancient in a way of seeing. Observing. Witnessing.
I felt I had seen so much change, so many change. I had seen growth and fulfilment of potential. I had seen hearts break and mend and love and break all over again. I had seen so many buds blossom and flourish, faces turned towards the rays of dreams and aspirations that once lived in chalky drawings and scrawled handwriting.
I remembered nappy changes, messy weaning, emergency trips to the doctors, temper tantrums, snotty noses and sticky hands. I'm not a mother and nor do I choose to be but I felt like The Mother, the Full Moon; a globe reflecting the light all these once-upon-a-time-children were shining towards me.
I thought back over the shyness, the socially awkward mumbling, the prickly lack of confidence that finds heads bowed down towards shoes drawing nervous lines in the ground. I saw how they had been replaced by firm business handshakes, charismatic conversation, belly laughs and big smiles and unbroken eye contact. I've seen uncertainty and questioning of divinity and faith move to utter conviction in the Divine, no matter what the question is.
And I, myself, remain fairly unchanged.
Aside from the different shades of a bored artist's colour palette in my hair, a dozen ear piercings and the comfort of a late night jacket potato wrapping itself around my waist - I was ever the same.
I felt like an oak tree, that had seen its most dramatic growth from sprout to sapling, shooting up and shedding leaves in a way that everyone could notice. And then I became a mature oak tree and stood solid, bearing fruit and flowers of wisdom to the seedlings that grew beneath the span of my branches. My growth is slow, calm and not too obvious except to those who love to look at me. None of the seedlings, brimming with life, had seen me as sprout or sapling. They had only enjoyed the shade of my leaves as a mature oak tree and that is their only captured image of me in their mind's eye and memory.
I have seen many seasons pass by and watched how the seeds have budded and grown into various plants and flowers under my nurturing gaze. Every so often, someone tells me they're getting married or becoming a parent and I'm just absolutely shocked that they're not 10 years old anymore.
There's a beauty that's quite indescribable when you are able to watch the growth of others as they cannot see it themselves. It's a kind of magic as they twirl and dance into mature trees themselves. I always say to those I love: “I wish you could see yourself with my eyes”. Everyone wants to be remembered and immortalised in the memories of others in that romantic way, all hazy and blurred edges with prismic light making them almost unreal. And aside from photographs and videos which usually capture the curated, most people's moments of joy, sadness, surprise and rage aren't seen and held.
But I've seen them. And I hold them fondly before me as prints I made whilst sitting inside this oak tree house of mine. I remember what you looked like when you couldn't believe how good that pastry tasted or when you saw the snow cover the rooftops. I remember your loving gaze towards the ones you hold close to your heart. I remember the hot tears of all the amalgamated feelings of human hurt that rained from your eyes onto your hands.
As I sit within the casing of this every maturing oak tree, I feel my feet rooting deeper into the soil. One day, I will be ancient oak tree. And I will have continued to see and witness the growth and physical living of others whilst I reach my branches out further to create the protected shade for them to sit under and dream.