Mountains and Trees: Walkabouts and Wanderlust
Hello, friends. Are you wondering where I’ve been? I am here, in northern California at the base of Mount Shasta, although I’ve been many places since I last wrote to you from Presidio, Texas.
I spent the spring watching the mountains come alive at Eagle Nest Lake in New Mexico. I watched the sage grow, wildflowers bud, and snow melt off the mountaintops only to reappear with early spring storms. I watched the water run down, letting the earth claim what it needed before flowing into the lake. It was messy—muddy, stormy, windy, and often cold, but I suppose the circle of life isn’t always neat, that cycle of sleep and wakefulness that envelopes us all.
The mountains were as magical as I let them be. Sometimes they floated down from the heavens, while other times they jutted up from the earth. They were always vast, filled with a lifetime of trails to walk, rivers to fish, and lakes to explore. Only the sky was bigger, filled with light and clouds that took my breath away.
The mountains were quick to remind me that no matter how highly I think of myself, I am smaller than the world, just a single cell within a vast organism. Insignificant? Perhaps, but this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Isn’t there freedom in insignificance? Doesn’t insignificance allow me to be who I am instead of who the world claims to need?
I didn’t mind feeling small, because I was never alone. The rugged terrain teems with life. I was especially fond of the ravens, and I believe they were fond of me. But I appreciated everyone living in the mountains—the deer, the elk, the fish, the hawks, the cougars, the badgers, and of course the prairie dogs. I have no doubt that the Eagle Nest prairie dog population rivals any major American city, and I wonder what secrets their underground cities might hold. Of course, if I knew, they wouldn’t be secrets, would they?
When it was time to move on, Crash and I ventured south to the Faywood Hot Springs Resort for two weeks, outside of Silver City, New Mexico. That, too, was a magical place, although the magic lived in sand and stone instead of rivers and lakes. The lizards escorted us along the trails by day, the tarantulas by night. And we had the privilege of watching a slew of baby peacocks learning the gifts and limits of their wings as their beautifully plumed parents watched from a distance. The hot springs were healing in ways I cannot describe. All I can say is that I sat in them for hours each day, and the rest of the time I spent working on the sequel to Evolving Elizah: Initiatum.
Then it was time to travel again. Restored and revitalized, we pointed west and made a mad dash toward the tall, tall trees, stopping to sleep outside of Flagstaff, Arizona in a beautifully peaceful forest. We arrived in Porterville, California, the following day, where we stayed at Success Lake for two nights—long enough for me to spend a day finding what remains of the giant sequoia trees in the Sequoia National Forest.
You may know that some of the groves burned in the Castle fire last year, but thankfully the Trail of 100 Giants remains. I drove through miles and miles of narrow, winding, scorched mountain roads to see them, praying at each turn that I wouldn’t fall off the side of the mountain. The trees seemed almost as big as the mountains, making me once again realize how very small I am, just a flash in the pan compared to these gentle giants who have been rooted in the same spot for nearly 2,000 years.
It was hot in Porterville, about 104 degrees Fahrenheit, and Crash was content to wait in the air-conditioned camper while I ventured out alone. But relief was forthcoming, as the temperature dropped almost 40 degrees when we headed north to Dillon Beach, California. We had a nice time camping on the beach, just behind the dunes and surrounded by joyful people enjoying the sand and the waves.
One day, I ventured down toward San Francisco, to Muir Woods in search of giant redwoods. I walked eight miles in the park, among the huge trees that once again reminded me just how small I am in this world. Of everything in the grove, I would most like to remember how it smelled. The dry, clean scent of evergreen trees is a quiet melody on an otherwise blank sheet of music, playing in my memory as I think of visiting the trees with my grandmother when I was a child.
Now I am here, at the base of Mount Shasta, which looms over me as if I’ve forgotten that I am but a speck on the fabric of time and space, a small segment of a long thread woven into the cloth. I haven’t forgotten. The message echoes clearly in the chasm of my thoughts, the void where my heart has been hiding recently. This is partly why I haven’t written to you—my thoughts reach out, searching for a message to give you, a story with meaning. But I can’t seem to reach beyond the world’s whisper, which repeats on an endless loop. “Don’t you know how many writers there are? How can you dream of succeeding among so many?”
I don’t know if I can succeed among so many, but I know this—each of the 2,000-year-old sequoia trees, which stand over 200 feet tall, started from a seed even smaller than me. If fear and doubt can grow in a void, can a writer’s identity also grow? Can hope echo as loudly as condemnation? What difference does it make, anyway, if I succeed or fail? All I can do is plant myself and reach for the sun.