“Jacaranda Tree” Our Annual Competition
It’s Jacaranda time again. The invasion of purple petals rule Sydney’s green spaces for about four weeks every year at this time. It heralds the final countdown to summer, and all is well in the world.
There are definitely Jacaranda hotspots where people can get a massive hit of lilac delight — Kirribilli and Lavender Bay on Sydney’s lower north shore. Also Waverton, Hunters Hill and Woolwich put on an impressive spread.
They may not be as profuse in my hood of the Eastern Suburbs, but the passion with which we pursue the iconic Aussie bloom has become a matter of family pride.
It started when my son was six as a game we would play on the way to and from school. It’s pretty simple. Once we’re in the car and on the road, it’s a competition to see who can count the most jacaranda trees on any journey. A bit like Spotto — the car game of spotting yellow cars. Count as many as you can. Person who spots the most, wins.
The first couple of years it was a case of genuinely seeking them out, but as Luca got older and wiser, he began to know where the trees in our and the surrounding streets were located. He would lean forward in his seat as I was approaching a corner, so he could get a glimpse of the lilac lovelies ahead of me.
The competition is fierce. From there it moved onto spotting clumps of purple in the distance. No matter how many I spot, he is always ahead. I can’t even claim a handicap as the driver — the one charged to keep us safe while we are on this quest.
It’s a kind of madness — this Jacaranda fever. It’s a silly little game - trivial, ridiculous, and yet it holds great power. It can make us giggle and laugh when we are annoyed. It can connect us for a brief time, overriding the distractions caused by work, school, phones or traffic. It makes us appreciate our surroundings, look at the world with fresh eyes. We can appreciate the beauty of the seasons, and it offers us a springboard into countless conversations.
When I was young my Dad had a saying whenever something annoyed him, he would declare ‘Right, that’s it! I’m going to Adelaide!’ It could be precipitated by anything, his footy team losing, the beer running out, a flat tyre on the car. We didn’t really understand it, but it made us laugh so hard. I still to this day have no idea why Dad chose Adelaide as the destination (as far as I know he never actually went there), but as we grew older, when things annoyed us we too would declare we were ‘going to Adelaide’.
I wonder if it is only our family who made up nonsensical games or sayings, that to outsiders were completely meaningless, but to us became some of the threads that weave our family tapestry together in such a unique way, that there will never be any mistaking that it is ours and our alone. I suspect not. I hope not!
And so, as my son nears his seventeenth birthday, I had wondered if ‘Jacaranda Tree’ (the required utterance to gain a point) might have finally lost its cachet and therefore be relegated to the graveyard where family silli-isms go to die, once they are condemned by teenagers.
It was a slow burn. I started whispering my count last week as the petals really began to make their presence felt. He tried to ignore me. He turned the radio up loud and looked at his phone. He shook his head in quiet exasperation. He got out at the train station still shaking his head, giving me that ‘you are so pathetic’ eye roll.
I drove to work pondering the end of an era, wondering if I should be sad. Then my phone buzzed. The message: Jacaranda Tree x 37!
He got a higher count, but I know who won!
