We went to the park, that was a no brainer. Kids spent the day inhabiting trees. At one point we had to clear one for a photo shoot staring a very tall thin model with black brown lipstick - yes blonde. So we went over and gaped at the Camperdown Elm before climbing the tree next to it, until the rangers told us to beat it. Meanwhile my daughter watched the fashion shoot and told me they made the model stand on a bag and then they put leaves on her. This made the model laugh.
Sorry rangers, we will never climb trees again. Yeah right. One is never quite as alive as when climbing a tree. But we know which ones are too fragile for our doddering human posteriors. My friend JB once gave me a book I really enjoyed called The Baron in the Trees, about a man who gets fed up with terrestrial life. In a Maxine Hong Kingston book I believe there's a similar character who masters the art of leaping from tree to tree with the wind.
I saw a red-bellied wood pecker in the tree they made us get out of, so I was glad they made us get out of it. The bird had style. Meanwhile I missed very much hearing Rabbi Bachman at the temple, but I've already started reading his Yom Kippur post entitled The Transparent Synogogue. He snagged me with the word transparent. This passage, which considers the need for structure, may be the pith of the drash. I love it.
...And like a magic trick pulled out of thin air, a structure emerged. There was the scaffolding of Torah and the I-beams of experience. There was the facade of life’s passing moments and the parapets of responsibility. There was the aspirational need to be lifted, existentially beyond the self with a soaring view of light and sky and there was the comfort and rootedness of a chair, a tree to lean against, the stability of an Idea.
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