17/09/2026
Along a riverside walking path, there was once a tree covered in dummies.
Parents often walked there with babies in prams, and inevitably a dummy would sometimes be dropped, thrown out or left beside the path.
At some point, someone picked one up and placed it on the tree.
Perhaps they hoped the family might double back and find it.
Then someone else did the same.
And someone else.
Over time, the tree became covered with them. Perhaps fifty or sixty dummies, clips and little chains hanging from the branches.
I was always curious about the intention behind each one.
Was it simply an act of kindness?
A practical way to keep the path free of litter?
A hope that someone might return and recognise what had been lost?
Or had the tree eventually taken on a life of its own?
Perhaps some families returned deliberately when a child had outgrown their dummy.
Maybe they told the child it was being left for the babies of the fairies.
A gentle way of marking a transition.
A practical object becoming part of a story.
A way of letting go that still held a little magic.
I never knew which explanation was true.
Perhaps several of them were.
And maybe that was what made the tree so compelling.
It held lost things, kind intentions, practical choices and imagined rituals all at once.
Sometimes a place begins with one simple act. Then people add their own meaning. Before long, it belongs to the imagination of a whole community.
🌿
I wonder...
Have you ever seen an ordinary place quietly become part of a community ritual?
