Older than me

In 2002, I picked up a book called Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. I couldn’t put it down. Steinbeck traveled across America and wrote about it, hence, the title of the book. Charley was his old dog. But it wasn’t just the prose that blew my mind away. It was also Steinbeck’s account of his visit to the grand redwood trees of California.

Grand. Now there’s a word I don’t take lightly.

Steinbeck, if I recall it correctly, said he felt in awe of these giant trees not only because of their sheer monstrosity but also because of their age.

He stood before something that belonged to an ancient world, and yet it is alive. Here was a tree that was older than generations of men, and yet one that would live long after future generations of men would have gone to dust.

Early this month, I and my wife went to see the California Redwood.

We went up an unpaved road lined by one magnificent giant after another. If the redwood trees could speak, what would they tell me? Would they even care to speak? After all, they are as close to immortal as any being can get, and I am but human, who will remain a child to their eyes even if I were to live a very old age.

Imagine this: When the sun sets on the horizon, they will be the last to see it. Sunlight will linger on their tops while in my world below, it would already be dark.

But even they, the immortals, are leaving.

Only five percent of these ancient coast redwood forests remain today.

There are efforts to save them, but if they go, another link to that ancient past would have been broken, and the world will be a poorer place.