BY JOELLEN COLLINS
Often asked about unique sites and attractions, I can be suddenly aware of them and take for granted places of great value nearby. Those of us who have lived in a resort town, as I once did, sometimes miss other nearby and exciting places. When my little girls and I resided only about half mile from a spectacular area of tide pools, it was easy to ignore the offered images and magic of the residue of water and critters so unique to ocean life. Perhaps a Little League game required an amount of happy time on a day when the weather invited us to explore that damp paradise, and we had to be elsewhere. When I was a child in San Francisco my parents tried seriously to visit nearly everything that was nearby – parks and places to explore, and the vibrant surroundings of San Francisco. Now that I reside in the Bay Area, I am near available and magnificent places once again. Sometimes I really feel refreshed and ready to explore my new environment.
Recently, a group of us visited a place I had never explored, unlike my longer and previous travels to faraway places like India, Thailand or Tanzania. We spent a few hours walking and being amazed in Muir Woods to visit a redwood forest not too far from where I now live. We spent a few hours walking, studying and absorbing this magnificent sight. I hadn’t been as close to a redwood in decades and thus experienced a mixed blend of emotions, including regret at not having been there before, and overwhelming peace surrounded by these massive redwoods.
I was with a friend who had experience and extensive knowledge of this treasured site, and she opened my eyes to other things I would not have observed just on my own, so it was a blessing of an experience. I learned not only of the miraculous regrowth of the magnificent trees even after massive fires and other environmental issues threatening nonexistence, I wondered at the proliferation of plants and creatures who live off and around the massive redwoods.
Finally, I understood more about things like the biology of the berms, those massive, seemingly gross protuberances dozens of feet above the ground that grow as a way of nourishing and sustaining the tree they sit on and the insects and birds which may need some nourishment from them. Somehow, I had never learned that in my biology class in high school.
The peace and quiet was so comforting and reminded me that even when I am not here, we have been given places of great comfort and peace and magnificence to ponder our position in our lives with what beauties are nearby. So I’m thankful I got out of my little place of life and once again spent some time in nature. I plan, as I did in Idaho, to spend more time outside whatever the difficulties of access might be. Thank you, John Muir.
