The Tree and the Trolley

Alone and frustrated, I wander the empty streets with only the light of the moon and the tungsten glow from ageing street lights to guide me. There’s something about empty streets that puts me at ease. I feel at home; I can wander through the night like a ghost without fear of being seen or judged or held responsible for anything. It’s both cripplingly lonely and oddly comforting at the same time. It’s as if, in the dead of night, I finally have a place to belong. In this world of shadow and stillness I’m like a visitor from another time. The world has moved on. People are gone. And only I remain. Forgotten buildings, nothing more than silhouettes against starry skies, tower silently above me. The cracks across their crumbling exteriors could be wrinkles across giant faces – monuments of the people I once knew and will never know again.

A solitary shopping trolley sits under the branch of a tree at the centre of a roundabout a few blocks from my house. Both are bathed in yellow light from a nearby street lamp. I stop to take in the scene before me; drawn to the empty trolley for reasons I cannot immediately articulate. It’s as if my feelings - no, my experiences - have left my body and soaked into my surroundings. This rudimentary wire basket on wheels could be me – skeletal and empty. The wire frame, the tree, the yellow light, the long shadows: they are a reflection, a physical manifestation of my inner struggles. The tree shields the trolley like a protective mother who won’t let it out of her sight. The branch above hangs close but keeps its distance; a hand that could at any moment offer an abundance of riches but never does. But still the trolley waits.

There is beauty in this image. Haunting beauty. The night, it seems, is full of such contradictions. I want to escape the darkness and disappear into it. I’m caught between living and dying; appreciative of all life has to offer but resentful of all it has thus far withheld. It’s as if I am always so achingly close to happiness and yet so despairingly far. I can see it in front of me. Almost touch it. And then it’s gone; an apparition that leaves as suddenly as it has arrived. A branch that is forever out of my reach. You see, I’m drawn to the unattainable. I want what I simply cannot have. And thus, remain empty.

Returning to the roundabout one evening, I finally attempt to capture the scene with my Nikon D810. Could I somehow embody the thoughts and feelings that ran rampant through me in a single image? I set up my tripod on the lonely street corner, lower my shutter speed dramatically, and take several long exposures using the self-timer function. The results are (in my mind) not works of art, nor fully accomplish the goal I set out to achieve, but I'm satisfied with my efforts nonetheless. I have turned my experience - my pain - into art; not for praise or recognition but for clarity and catharsis.

Late one night as I drive home from work, Melbourne is suddenly blanketed by thick fog. I lean forward over my steering wheel and squint into the darkness in an effort to see the way ahead. What was once a familiar road could now be a highway to the afterlife; a ghostly portal to another world. I have an unexpected urge to revisit the trolley under the tree. Perhaps another photo opportunity will present itself. So, as cautiously as possible, I make my way through the backstreets of Caulfield South until the roundabout is visible. The familiar street lamp soaks the surrounding fog in a yellow haze. The tree stands tall and unwavering. But the trolley is gone. It has moved on, perhaps to seek fulfillment elsewhere.

As I drift off to sleep that night a thought enters my mind. What if I too moved on? What if holding on to everything - my past, my pain, my fears, and my guilt - was no longer serving me? Could the fulfillment I long for so desperately lay elsewhere, beyond the fog? The answers don't immediately present themselves, but my sleep (so often plagued with restlessness) is for once undisturbed...