America, One Moment at a Time — #42

THE FOREST THAT MADE ME LOOK UP

Muir Woods doesn’t announce itself.
It slowly takes you in.

We followed a rather ordinary sign.

A few minutes later, ordinary had disappeared.

We were walking among coast redwoods, their trunks rising around us and disappearing somewhere above the canopy.

I had seen photographs of redwoods.

Then I discovered their one drawback:

They give you a neck ache.

I kept looking up.

The forest felt almost like a cathedral. Except there were no walls, no roof. And considerably more trees.

Sunlight squeezed through wherever it could.

And somehow, everything felt quiet.

But the magic wasn’t only above us.

There was a whole little world underneath:

Ferns.

Moss.

A quiet stream.

Fallen trees slowly returning to the forest floor.

Everything seemed to have its place.

Even the fallen giants weren’t really gone.

They had simply changed jobs.

Nature’s recycling system.
No paperwork required.

Before we had gone very far, we were reminded that these trees have a very different relationship with time.

Their rings tell stories stretching across centuries.

While we humans were busy making history…

the trees were simply growing.

That put my own little deadlines into perspective.

For about five minutes. 😄

We measure our lives in decades.

These trees measure theirs in centuries.

Standing beside them, the definition of “small” becomes quite clear.

Even the creek had a story.

Young salmon were preparing for their journey to the ocean.

So much life was quietly happening around us.

And perhaps that was what made Muir Woods different.

It wasn’t trying to impress us.

It simply was.

Growing.

Changing.

Waiting.

We left with phones full of photographs…

and a neck that had clearly had enough of looking up.

But Muir Woods left us with something better:

A few hours of feeling very small… in the nicest possible way.

And sometimes, that’s exactly the perspective we need.