Day 9

So today I could tell you about the greenhouse my tent turns into when in direct sunlight. I could describe the drive back in to yosemite, and how the bus we took up to the sequoia grove reminded me of the blue line on a tuesday morning at 7:45. I could try and fail to describe the amazing trees that have been growing for over a thousand years. I could ramble a bit about the stroll we took to mirror lake, and how the trail back was covered with horse poo. I might even touch on the jacuzzi we came back to and put our feet in. But that's not what I'm going to talk about.

I'm going to talk about forests.

There are a few places I feel supremely comfortable. One would be a cliff face or boulder mountain; these are my playgrounds and they challenge me physically to be better then I am. My balance, spatial judgement and reaction time have all benefitted from the pure compulsion I have to climb and jump around on everything I see. These places give me an outlet found hardly anywhere else where I can let loose fully and play. There have been a few of those places on this trip so far and I am incredibly thankful for the opportunity to sink into my true self and run, jump, climb and crawl places that I probably shouldn't have been doing them.

But we're not talking about mountains.

There is something about a forest that just gets me. Now this can be applied to most gatherings of trees, but today we entered a grove of trees that seemed hardly trees at all. A scene for lord of the rings comes to mind; where legolas is in fangorn forest and looks around and says "this forest is old" in a hushed voice, filled with wonder and caution. That is what I felt today. I love listening to everything breathe, I love feeling the bark of a tree that has been around for over 1800 years. I imagine what the thoughts of a being that has lived that long would be. What would something that was here long before our country existed, that has fought out many siblings for a piece of sky and ground to call its own, that has survived countless fires and disasters have to say?

I could have sat for hours today just listening with my eyes closed, or with my fingers in the ground, feeling the pulse of the land, or tracing every line in the heartwood of one of the majestic residents whose home I was merely a visitor in.

There is something about forests that I lose myself in, and today, in the oldest forest I've ever been in, I felt like I was at home.