The air is crisp & clean. It’s icy fingers stretch down into my lungs, freezing my chest but for some reason making me want to breathe in deeper. The sky is gray. Dense clouds hang low above our heads. The smell of pine lingers, foreshadowing the coming colder season. In the distance, I can hear small animals chattering to one another & scuttering along the forest floor.
I outstretch one hand & run it against the rough bark of the tall, majestic giant standing before me. The tree seems to almost radiate a reddish glow, filling my chilly form with a wondrous warmth. I look up. From where I stand, I can just barely see where the top branches reach the sky above.
I wrap my arms around the trunk. They do not even travel halfway around its base. I press my ear against the bark & pull my chest in closer, listening for the hum inside, matching the beat of my heart to the beat of the life inside this ancient resident of earth. It has been standing here since long before I was even imagined, & it will remain here long after I leave this world, every year growing a little taller, a little wider, a little stronger, a little more majestic.
When I was a little girl, I was infatuated with trees. I imagined that I could talk to them, & I would spend hours playing outside with my imaginary friends in the forest. And the trees I dreamed most of meeting were the stately redwood trees in California.
I have finally arrived, nearly 20 years later, & while I am older & wiser now, I do still wonder what these trees would tell me if they could talk. What would they say, after seeing the earth change over the last few thousand years, to someone like me, who can’t even comprehend how long that actually is?
Perhaps they would tell me that life is so much simpler than I make it to be. That in that forest, as much as the world seems to be different, a lot has also remained the same. We all grow, we breathe, we love, & we die. Everything else is not required. When compared to all that has happened on planet earth, the things I worry about in my daily life would not even equate to the width of one ring in their trunk. It does not mean those things are meaningless, but perhaps they are also not worth the worry lines in my own face. Life is beautiful & meant to be savored.
So, when the busyness seems to consume you, & the worries of life are all you can think about, come back to this place. Center yourself. Feel the sun on your skin, the beat of your heart, the air moving in & out of your lungs. Ponder your humanity, & how fleeting it is, & remember that is one of the things that makes it beautiful. Stand tall & grow with confidence. And finally, know that your life is deeply rooted to many others who were here long before you, & who will be here long after you are gone, & that alone gives your fleeting existence on this earth meaning & purpose.
Joseph & I spent the day today exploring Redwood National & State Parks – we did a 13-mile-hike, & then drove, exhausted, to our Airbnb in Medford, Oregon, where we crashed for the night. In lieu of trying to capture every little detail of our day, in which it seemed nothing much happened, I though it better to capture what I felt during our hike, gazing at those majestic trees & feeling the sense of wonder I always had as a little girl when I saw pictures of them.
