I Brought My Heart Home from San Francisco

I’m back from my trip, tired, but rejuvenated as well. I like to travel, to see new things and interesting places. But it’s always good to come home to our little bungalow that’s comfortable and cozy and so suited to us.
San Francisco is a fabulous city, unique and cosmopolitan. The weather was cool and the sun shone. Who could argue with that?
I was there for a writer’s conference, so I signed a lot of books, talked to a lot of long time friends and had some great face-to-face meetings with my agent, my editor and people from my publisher.
Bill and I took as much time as we could to see the city. We tooled through Golden Gate Park in a three-wheel scooter. We ate a romantic lunch at the Cliff House. And we saw the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Art.
I enjoyed it all, but maybe my favorite day was visiting the giant redwoods in Muir Woods. It’s dark and cool and the sweet smell of the trees seems to permeate everything. We didn’t take the hardest trails, but we didn’t stay on the easiest either. We got far enough away from the crowds to hear the rustle of the leaves and the water rushing down the creek. It was nice.
Bill and I talked about how the trees got so big. He told me that the redwoods have an advantage over many other trees. When they are threatened by fire or storm damage or whatever, the tree’s response to that is to form a burl near the roots. From that burl a new shoot will grow out very quickly and being attached to the old tree’s root system, it can get big and strong and sturdy in a very short time. Sometimes the main tree survives and sometimes it does not. Either way, the new growth flourishes on the deep roots that were already put down.
Amazingly, the seeds of the redwood are equally unique. They lie dormant on the forest floor, sometimes for years. It’s only when fire sweeps through that they are activated to grow.
The panel I was on at the conference was about writing under pressure, writing when things go bad. I’ve certainly written books through some very tough times in my own life. And my fellow panel members had their share of adversity as well.
I guess the whole premise of such a discussion is that in times of tragedy, going on with our lives, doing our jobs and continuing to meet our obligations is somehow miraculous. It’s brave. It’s admirable.
Perhaps though, there is a way that the terrible things that happen to us can activate new growth. We can form attachments that tap into our roots or finally spur all that creativity that has lain fallow on the ground for so long.
It doesn’t make the bad times any easier to bear. But maybe it does give them some kind of purpose. That in itself can be enough to get us by.