Trips/ July 2008

Dear friends and family,

These writings, my introspective journeys inward, are not written for general consumption. I'll be thinking 'out loud' for a few non-judgemental loved ones who know me well enough to take these sometimes muddled thoughts with a grain of salt. When we digest experiences, articulate emotion, name the nebulous, then what we are really doing is taking a journey inward, right? Hence the name "viajar', which isn't Spanish for "way of the jar" .....it mean to take a trip. Pronounced "vee ah har".
As it turns out, this first entry is about an actual trip. Danny and I have just returned from a vacation up north, Del Norte, incorrectly pronounced "del nortttt" by the locals. They got their own way of doing stuff up there close to the Oregon border. Influenced by the Oregonians, maybe. Danny played in a three day golf tournament with some of his pals from Crescent City. I guess it was a lot of fun but, like I said, those people up there are different. Different in a good way, though. They're just kind of independent. And they like to party, which is way cool with my hubby.
Crescent City is surrounded with emerald forests to the north, south, and east. To the west is the Pacific Ocean, which was OK until a tsunami washed up there and swallowed half the town in 1963, not so long ago that folks have forgotten. Anyway, it's the forests that captivated me. You know about the Redwoods, right? The Sequoia? The facts are these; relatives of todays Redwoods lived in the Jurassic Period! They can live more than two thousand years. And they are living, just like...us. Alive. You can feel their aliveness when you stand next to one of them, or put your hand on it. One of these trees can transpire ("spire") three hundred gallons of moisture into the atmosphere a day! Does that combat global warming? I would think so. We need every drop of water we can get in California. Wildfires caught weeks ago and the fires are still burning! Global warming isn't some future catastrophe, it's happening now.
Oops. I told myself I can't just ramble. Stick to the subject! Are you still there? Well, Redwoods have been measured at more than three hundred and seventy feet tall. That's taller than the Statue of Liberty. But. The seed of the Redwood is tiny. (There's a metaphor for you). The name Sequoia is from the man who wrote the Cherokee alphabet. (His English name was Gist, a distant relative of my children!) The rest of the name is Latin, sempervirens, meaning forever living. I love that word.
I'm trying to keep this short, too late! Read it in installments if this is taking you too long. Back to the Redwoods; The facts are interesting but I guess if you're really interested you'll look it up online or read a book so I won't give you more statistics. The thing about the trees is that they're mystical. You can feel them the same way you can feel a roomful of people when you walk in; you don't have to see them, you know they're there. And it seems that the whole forest is filled with life, and death and drama and joy, just as all of the rest of life is. I felt transported to a better place. I felt alive, peace, joy, all of those things at one and the same time. It just makes you happy to be there because for a moment; you become part of that mystique.
There was more to our trip, of course. There was the people, and the ocean, and being in San Francisco, another somewhat mystical place. But the best part of any journey is coming home, because Auntie Em, there's no place like home. You want scenery? You want adventure? Drama? Mysticism? Right here, @ home.
I guess this is enough for the first entry. It was, as I hinted at the beginning, somewhat muddled, and longer than I thought it would be, but intensely riveting, nevertheless. Just kidding. Hope you're still there!
I love you all very much!