muir woods

Last week, on my birthday, Pete and I drove over to Marin County and visited Muir Woods. We've been before through the years, but I felt like it was calling us.. "come visit!" I remember taking Tommy when he was tiny and taking all four boys when John was little. We ended up carrying an asleep John along the trail. It was enormous fun sharing it with the boys all those years ago. This time it was quiet, we walked slowly and listened to the light rain. This is a picture of the parent redwood tree and its offspring. Evidently, it had been burned and had died, but the roots sent new shoots up and in a circle around the old parent grew several newer thriving trees. This phenomenon provides me with a tangible living example of the "family tree" that I can access. Pete and I are getting older. (Our parents are getting older too.. which I can not bear.) We are going to die someday. But together we've sunk our roots into the soil of our time and place and out of these years have sprung four boys. They will grow and eventually die too, but they will carry with them a part of us and this is the nature of things. Gazing on these tall and beautiful trees, I find this arrangement to be more than acceptable. It is quite beautiful and I am grateful to be a part of it all.