Epiphany #4
San Francisco! Who doesn’t love San Francisco?
I used to work for a large nutraceutical company in New York, and one year they decided to send me to San Francisco to attend a Consumer Affairs conference. It was November but I was excited to go because this was to be an all expense paid trip lasting for 5 days. The main speaker was Ralph Nader and there were a lot of cocktail parties to attend. I became a fan of Ralph Nader after listening to his speech because he was surprisingly charismatic. Because it was a last minute decision to send me, there weren’t too many hotel rooms available and I ended up staying at a rather expensive downtown hotel. The trip started out good and it ended great.
Before journeying to San Francisco I had tried to book myself on one of the bus tours linked to the conference, but to no avail. The tour was fully booked and so was the boat trip to Alcatraz. However, on the Sunday before the conference started I took a taxi over to the point of rendezvous just in case there was a cancellation for the bus tour. It was November 1999 and the weather was not good. I woke up on Sunday morning to a dreary, rainy San Francisco and I had a hunch that someone would probably cancel out because of the rain. My hunch paid off. Quite a lot of people had cancelled the trip because of the rain and the bus was half empty.
I boarded the bus and settled back to enjoy the tour. It was very pleasant, the rain cleared for a while and I teamed up with another conference attendee so that we could enjoy the day as much as possible.
Our last stop was Muir Woods http://www.nps.gov/muwo/faqs.htm and as the bus began to wind its way up to Muir Woods, I had a creeping sensation that this was going to be no ordinary thing. As the bus made its way up the narrow winding road, my travelling companion closed her eyes because there was a sheer drop on one side of the road and it had started to rain again. The road seemed to be winding higher and higher and it became very humid inside the bus. When we finally arrived it was teaming with rain and everyone on the bus except the tour guide, me and another passenger headed for the coffee shop. The other passengers declined to enter the woods.
The three of us went in together and as usual, I wandered off by myself because of the need to be free to explore. It was amazing. The giant Redwood trees were magnificent and the natural tree canopy overhead was so thick that it prevented the rain from coming through. It was peaceful, deadly quiet and once more I felt at peace with nature. These trees are the tallest in the world and I could have stayed in there forever. All of a sudden it dawned on me that I could be at peace in my life more often if only I could live in a place that was surrounded by old trees.
This is one of my treasured belongings. It's a handmade coffee table made from a slice off the root of a fallen Redwood tree. The base is driftwood.
The conference was great, all the speakers were good, and the entertainment at the grand opening was superb. Japanese drummers similar to those at Epcot in Disney World performed, and their performance was better although I still enjoy the drummers at Disney. The breakfast croissants and cappuccino at the hotel were really good and I was so glad that I didn’t take the boat tour to Alcatraz because the weather was so rough that most of the passengers became seasick. Instead of the boat trip I treated myself to an early steak dinner in the hotel rooftop restaurant where I could gaze out at the sparkling lights of the city. The waiter brought me an invitation to join a gentleman at the bar and we spent a nice evening together.
On the last night of the conference there was a dinner dance to attend. I was dismayed to find out that I would need to stand in line at the entrance to the hotel and wait for a taxi. It was raining again and although I was wearing a jacket over my finery, the weather had turned freezing cold. When I asked the doorman why there was a line for taxis he explained to me that there was always a shortage of taxicabs in San Francisco. I thought that I was going to be late for the dinner dance but after five minutes the doorman approached me and said, “Would you follow me please, ma’am.” He lead me around the corner to a waiting sedan, opened the back door for me and since it was pouring rain I didn’t argue and stepped inside.
“Where to ma’am?” the driver said.
I gave him the address of the hotel that I was heading to and then asked him why I was fortunate enough to be sitting in this beautiful Mercedes-Benz. This is what he said.
On mulling things over I began to understand why the ancient trees had such an effect on me. When I was very young, my mother used to sit me under a big old Rowan tree (mountain ash) that grew in our side yard. She gave me a blunt needle and some strong thread and I was totally at peace picking the berries that had fallen off the tree and stringing them into necklaces. I knew that the berries were too sour to eat and I knew not to wander away from the tree. Because we moved to a different house when I was six, I calculate that I was between three and five years old. Thanks to satellite photos on the web, I was able to zoom in and have a look the old house, but the tree is gone (replaced by wide driveway).
Take a look at where I live now. These old oak trees are not on my land, they grow on the golf course that snakes in and out of the housing development where I live. I derive immense pleasure from the fact that I can look at the trees whenever I want to. The trees, most of which are over 100 years old are a protected species and can only be cut down if they die. The trees are growing a short distance from the edge of my property.
I also love the two palm trees that grow alongside my pool and I’m coaxing the palm tree at the front of the house back to life. This tree was uprooted during hurricane Charley in 2004 and it’s taken this long for it to spring back to life
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