Cherries

On the land where we live, I’ve discovered a number of Aboriginal sites over the past few years — rock hollows scattered across hillsides and tucked near the spring.

For a while, finding them became something close to an obsession. I’d scan the ground constantly. Walk slower. Look harder.

The other day we took visitors to one of the sites. We call it the Baths — large, deep hollows beside a spring, big enough we’ve imagined them used to bathe small children. That’s our interpretation. The truth of their purpose may be lost to us.

We did what we always do. We focused on the rocks.

Until someone seeing the place for the first time pointed out what I had never noticed.

A native cherry tree, heavy with fruit, standing above the hollows. Close enough to brush against. I’d been there dozens of times and never really seen it.

The tree didn’t need me to notice it. It was doing what it does regardless.

Then I (finally) noticed it. I wasn’t looking for it — just something beautiful, generous, quietly present. It was hard to believe that it had been there all along.

For months I’d trained my eye to look for hollows. To scan for that specific shape. Focus can be like that. It filters, it sharpens the frame — and quietly, without meaning to, it narrows it.

What else am I missing?