I didn’t always have an untraditional backyard.
In fact up until the age of eighteen, the majority of my life was spent within a few miles radius of a middle class Florida suburb. My bubble was safe albeit incredibly small. I held onto a tender dream of seeing the Redwoods in person one day. I didn’t imagine life would eventually find me on top of a mountain surrounded by an overgrown forest. Living in a cabin between hundred-year-old trees goes far beyond the pipe dream I had sitting in my childhood bedroom.
There’s a richness in being off the beaten path. An abundance in lush greenery provides me a calmness that a major city or a perfectly manicured lawn never could. Out here bustling life doesn’t come from the humming of wheels or indistinct neighborhood chatter but more often from the sound of deer tramping across our hillside or roosters cawing in the morning.
Every walk outside my doorstep presents a slightly different show. My attention went from solely mountains and big trees to a more narrow focus. I appreciate the smaller details; the life cycle of flowers and mushrooms. A dance of blooming and decaying side by side. Both are necessary. I can now successfully identify the difference between poison oak and blueberry bushes. The rhythm of the woods is one I’ve become more in tune with over the years. Our tangled roots are deeply intertwined.
While I will always have a fondness for living front row to nature’s beauty, I’ve also witnessed firsthand it’s ability to shake, rip and burn through the land we love. Climate change hit California especially hard in the past year.
For an unnerving two weeks we evacuated home due to wildfires without knowing if there’d be anything left to return to. From our deck we can see the scorched trees burned into the earth. Brown patches in the distance remind us of the neighboring towns that weren’t as lucky.
Within the same week in January, a 4.5 magnitude earthquake got overshadowed by a wild windstorm. Hurricane-like gusts blew through the forest in the middle of the night. The sound of waves crashing in the sky kept me up for hours. I’d subconsciously hold my breath anytime a branch would snap or debris would scrape against the roof. Forest and Hunter were as restless as we were. While laying in bed grasped onto Jordan my mind raced with unsettling thoughts—the kind that accompanies you at four in the morning. Will our creaky old cabin make it in one piece? Can the redwoods survive this? Will we?
My heightened anxiety of strong winds was a result of a tragic accident several years ago. At the tail end of winter a small group of friends and I went on a camping trip to Yosemite. A pouring of four-five inches of snow covered the park overnight. Since we based our adventure around snowshoeing we were stoked. But barely a mile into our hike came the sound of an ambulance echoing through the canyon. Park Rangers announced through their vehicle speakers to seek shelter immediately in the mess hall. Tourists, campers, hikers, and climbers from around the park filed inside. Then came the news. A tree fell on top of a young women’s cabin—an awful freak accident due to the snowfall and heavy winds. She was staying at the neighboring campground beside ours. Rangers escorted one party at a time to our campsites. We packed quickly and left the park in a haze.
Moments like that stay with you. Something that never crossed my mind now takes up space in the back corners. I recognize trees for their power; a massive force and wisdom that comes from decades or centuries of existence.
Since that day, I find myself paying more attention to loose branches hanging precariously over structures. I take note of the proximity of crooked trees surrounding our cabin like a mental map. Extremely windy days sends an alert to my nervous system.
The night of the recent windstorm stirred up a lot of anxiety in me. When morning came and the dust settled, I felt a rush of relief. The creaky cabin made it. Looking outside my window I was reassured to see the old growths standing tall. Aside from debris spilled across the road and some downed power lines, the damage was minimal in the grand scheme of things. Lucky for us it was nowhere near my worried thoughts at four a.m.
Season after season the woods have taught me lessons on resiliency.
While we were rattled without sleep or power, the birds kept singing and the dogs seemed to have forgotten it happened at all. I’m continually in awe of nature’s ability to adapt.
Ninety percent of the time living in a forest is magic. While there is absolutely romance to living out amongst it there is also a vulnerability tied at the other end. What I want to remind people of is this: wild beauty and fragile unpredictability are a packaged deal.
Now my bubble is much more vast. Regardless of zip code we’re all at the whim of Mother Nature. For right now I choose to set roots where I feel most alive. When our address eventually changes, I’ll think back fondly of this golden time in the wild. To love where you live despite the elements means something, don’t you think?
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