Belong
On a mid-spring day that feels like summer, I walk through the bush with Nora and Quinn, scanning the sandy track ahead for snakes among the fallen tree branches.The other day, a long, fat, black, fast slithering snake blocked the track behind the children’s playground. As soon as I saw it, I turned around and strode quickly away before the dogs noticed the venomous, dangerous creature I didn’t want us to meet.
Ducking under the bowing branches of a line of wattle trees, I notice they’re about to flower. An abundance of tiny, tightly coiled spheres is ready to spring open. Any day now, a sweet wattle smell will saturate the warm air, the scent of the bush.On our way home, through the trees, a lone blue agapanthus flower catches my eye. Surely it has bloomed too soon? None of the agapanthus plants crammed into our front gardens is ready to flower.
I love the agapanthus season. Despite our local native plant nursery declaring this plant an exotic weed and trying to discourage us from planting it, all the gardens in our street are agapanthus-rich. Clumps of flat, strappy leaves. from which tall, sculptural flowers will emerge, mark the front boundaries of our properties. Well before Christmas, our road will be lined with striking blue and white flowers.
And a few agapanthus flowers will appear in the bush even though they don’t belong. They’re somewhere they shouldn’t be, but I can’t help but admire their adventurous spirit and their desire to conquer new territories. Rounding a bend in the track, they’re unexpected delights among the native plants.
Years ago, when my girls and I would finish our early morning runs through the bush, we’d flop amongst the clumps of agapanthus plants planted by our local council, who’d also ignored the warnings about exotic flowers invading the bush. We’d upturn our bottles, gulping the cool water before plodding home on run-weary legs.
Our running days are over. My girls have moved on to new adventures, and some now belong somewhere else.But part of them will always belong here, in the bush with the wattles and the agapanthus. And the black venomous snakes that we wouldn’t miss if they decided to migrate somewhere else.
It doesn’t matter where my girls go or what they do; they’re still running along the tracks, jumping over fallen branches, panting as they approach the finish line. They grin, high-five with sweaty palms and congratulate each other: “Good work, Team!” And joy flows.
Those days aren’t lost. They live in my memory. No one can take them away. They belong to me.