Some Thoughts About Getting Lost

Funks. Everybody gets into them, even those of us who are supposed to help people get out of them. Mine was ushered in with the permanent departure of my daughter and grandchildren to the East coast and topped off with a nasty 2 week virus that felt brain-paralyzing.

Today was determined to serve as a mental health day.  I diligently checked the weather at Stinson Beach (85 degrees and sunny) and headed out for my old familiar territory, Marin.  For some reason that trip has gotten way longer over the years.  This may have something to do with the fact that I can walk to work and rarely drive more than an hour to go anywhere anymore.  In any case, it would be worth the long, winding drive to get to the ocean, take in the sun and calming messages of the sea.  As I made the final approach above Stinson Beach I took in the vista over the cliff to my left and saw… nothing.  No sea, only the very tops of rocky mountains, and the largest mass of low clouds I’ve ever seen outside of a plane.  It looked like I’d reached the end of the world.

Great. I needed a few hours at the beach and now I’d done all this driving for nothing.  And what about wasting all this gas?  I figured I might as well walk out to the beach as I’d come this far.  In the parking lot I asked a woman if the area was all fogged in. She replied, “the water’s there!”  And I thought, right, and that was what I came for, after all. How strange it was, walking onto that long strip of sand replete with noisy young people and sunbathers, and yes, waves that were still there to see as well as hear. This little world continued to go on as usual beneath the ceiling of clouds that had hidden it completely from view just up the hill. It had seemed for all the world that any plan of a beach related reprieve from the stresses of life would be an impossibility only minutes before.  The symbolism made me laugh. What a perfect metaphor for how life appears when in a funk - no vision, no belief in surprises.  In fact, the fog seems like the reality.  It would be easy to believe that nothing existed beyond that fog if one didn’t know better.  But often we forget.

When it did become too cool to stay I moved on with some curiosity about what would come next. I wormed my way along more curved roads, eucalyptus trees paralleling both sides, and noticed how they, who were foreigners to this landscape, have come to define it. As if by a magnet I was drawn my favorite place in the Bay area, Samuel Taylor Park. So many people tell me they’ve never heard of it, but it is a silent treasure of huge redwoods. Upon entering, it never fails to move me like no cathedral ever could. These huge trees have witnessed everything and you can feel the history.  I wish some of their perspective would somehow infuse me as I sit quietly beneath them. Some are split like clothespins – lightning bolts leaving black marks.  Still they continued to grow and sprout new leaves hundreds of years later.  They have gone through their traumas too.  And for me, this visit of ever present persistence waves and patient centuries-old trees has reminded me that I am part of it all, maybe not as long on this earth but here now.  I believe we all need these reminders that life goes on and we are not alone, and when we truly look at the details of nature we have a better understanding that it is not always easy and that the one constant thing is change.