A child ran to the tree, stood at its base and looked up. She’d been trained well and respected her knowledge so knew how high she could climb safely and how to identify branches strong enough to take her weight. She’d keep her clear lines of sight and knew the agreed distress call. She’d never yet fallen and never once needed to call out.

She knew when she was up there her adults still, after all this time, felt a little queasy, and knowing they were always looking, didn’t always choose the right branch on purpose, but she knew and she understood. and she loved and respected them, but she also loved and respected the tree, and that was perhaps more important in moments like this. Win win. One a piece.

Hanging there up between the thick branches, expertly adjusting her weight to achieve a balance, she knew she was out of any real reach and this delighted her.

She was happy to share her tree. Company would bring graduated competition as they picked their way up through the tangle, and once ensconced, company would lead to conversation. And oh my, the things they would talk about up there: the free adventuring, the wonder, the doubt: a salvation that could only be achieved with another. And, of course, the astonishing idea.

Not so much with a desk.

Notes: The Astonishing Idea is the flipside to the Deceiving Idea (Nick Cave, Sean O’Hagan, Faith, Hope and Carnage, 2022). It’s the real deal, the genuinely original stuff that emerges once the legacy rot of old material (the deceiving idea) has been drawn out and expunged at the start of the creative process. It’s the goal of artistic endeavour.