We saw the Vincent Tree

I don't know if anyone out there has ever fallen into a coincidence so strange and earth-shattered that it has redefined their very outlook of the universe down to the deepest heart of their visceral awareness etc etc. Me neither, but this comes pretty close.

A couple of months back we were staying with Jude's sister Lara in Coffs Harbour, a coastal town four hundred miles north of Sydney. Lara and her husband Nick and their three boys currently live just outside the town, back in the hills among the banana plantations.

One day, Lara and I and Zac and his cousins Jake and Darwin took a drive up the windy road behind their place and then on into the rainforest, which is under a conservation order and so has been spared the logger's blade.

After driving for half a mile along the narrow road, surrounded by the deep green of the forest, we stopped at a huge tree which was growing in a half-clearing. We got out. There was a plaque on the tree. It said, The Vincent Tree.

My mother's maiden name was Vincent. Her dad was Roy S. Vincent. He was Minister For Forests in the NSW parliament from 1932-41. This was his tree, named for him after he'd brought in the rainforest's preservation order.

I'd never seen it before, and Lara, though she had know it was here, had no idea of the connection between the tree and me.

Spooky, huh?

Ant.