Plane Tree

13 Nov Plane Tree

I stand looking up at this mature London Plane tree. Its bark is mottled and knobbled with cankers. Two arms reach out as though about to bend and gather me up. Its leaves are yellowing, thinning on top like the mullet of an ageing rock star. In the midst of the rush and busyness of freelance life, this is a moment of pause. Calling Charles Eisenstein to mind, I embrace this still centre of Hackney Downs as an antidote to “the Problem of Urgency”, that “struggle may itself be part of the problem”. Instead I dwell in the calm of tree time. I breathe; spend just a few minutes not racing to the next destination.