Forest Friends and Soul-Places

Every forest has a feeling.

Some are dark and depressing, and the ferns droop in sadness. Others are playful; the sunlight dances between the leaves, and the shrubs sway with the breeze. Some places are completely silent; not even a leaf stirs on the ground. Others are filled with birds in the treetops and animals scurrying along the forest floor.

Some bring you back in time, their essence oozing ancientness and wisdom. Others feel young, as if all the trees would get up and run around a schoolyard if they weren’t rooted to their spot. There are parental woods and fun uncle forests. There is childlike whimsy in some places and a seriousness of the end of time in others.

Forests are as diverse as people—and I want to meet them all.

There is one stretch along Skyline Blvd that I have stated is where I want to live. I connect with this one section of forest. I can’t explain why. It’s like trying to explain why you’re in love with someone. You can point out certain attributes, but in the end, it’s something that can’t be put into words—it goes deeper than anything language can express. It is where I return to again and again to feel plugged in, tuned in, to be myself. It is returning home and I have found no other forest like it.

Until now.
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This weekend we headed north over the Golden Gate bridge once more. Baltimore Canyon and Dawn Falls Trail was our destination in Larkspur, just north of Sausalito.

Driving north along their main street, it seemed familiar, but I don’t believe I had ever driven it. I had a sudden vision of going to a coffee house in a white building on this stretch of road, but I couldn’t confirm that my memory was correct. Or if perhaps the little woodland towns I’ve visited throughout the years have started to morph together in my mind.

I drove on, past a little park that was less small town park and more wooded playland with towering redwoods. I turned down a small street and found the narrow residential road that would lead us to the trailhead.

The curved road reminded me of Skylonda—the small looped street where the cabin Tucker and I had in Woodside a few years ago was. The cabins were small and each property unique. All melded into the forest around them, as if they grew from the ground organically or were slowly returning to the earth on their own.
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The trailhead was just past the last house on a spur of the loop. The leaves on the ground covered the line wherein pavement ended and forest floor began. 

T​he trail wound up, then back down through the redwoods and oaks. The sound of the creek was heard long before we could see it. When I arrived, I expected just a rocky brook. To my surprise, there was a neighborhood across the river. A neighborhood that made me smile and sigh simultaneously. We walked along the creek, the waterway that was the result of the trail’s namesake Dawn’s Falls. The large cabins lined the river way, some with fenced in backyards, some open, but all with a stairway that led down the river.

A few children played with a yellow lab down on the rocks of the river, wielding sticks like swords and engaged in some epic adventure of their imagination’s contriving.
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As we came to the final house on the other side of the river, there was a sign. One more pillar of civilization before diving deep into nature—along paths made by humans to be so natural, they seemed carved out by Mother Nature herself.

​The mossy green trees and redwood leaves that blanketed the trail opened the floodgates of joy into my heart. This gregarious forest welcomed Tucker and me with its charm. There was ease and earnest self that I gleaned from the forest. If this was a person, I’d like to sit down at the bar with them and listen to their stories. The running water was a steady soundtrack that ran beneath the sounds of animals above and below.

The trail began its upward ascent through the trees, around bushes, and even over a bridge. Some people hike to get to conquer a trail; I hike to be… which makes it tough to keep going sometimes; I find a place that pulls me in and I just want to sit and stay a spell.

It was a loop trail, and I saved the Falls for the return half. We climbed quickly, and found ourselves on a fire road, high above the sleepy mountain town. As I crested the hill to plant my feet on broken pavement, I spotted a teenager on a bike, pedaling toward us, his blue and white checkered flannel shirt sweeping back behind him in his self-created cycling breeze. His black and white stocky dog trotted behind him. As he went past, I stood a moment taking it in, wondering what his life was like; wondering what it was to spend his adolescence in a town like this. I wondered where he was off to; if he had some sporting practice that day, and what he did with friends on Saturday nights.

The sky wasn’t cloudy, but the perpetual mist that lies low in forests such as these make everything a little more dreamlike. It touches the imagination, opening a door to endless possibilities. I wondered if he, like me at his age, couldn’t wait to get out of his hometown. If he yearned to explore. If he didn’t yet appreciate the beauty of here, and how it not just influenced who he would become, but how it had already taken residence in his heart to always be a part of his soul.

Tucker looked up at me as they rode around the corner out of view as if he felt my mind wander and wanted to make sure he didn’t lose me.  “Where did you go?” he seemed to ask, knowing my mind had gone on its own adventure while my feet stayed still.

​I was brought back together—mind and body—and moved my feet in the direction of the boy and his dog. Every now and again, the tree line opened up and I saw houses on the sides of mountains, and the cozy town nestled in the crevices of the nurturing hills.

​While I always enjoy a sweeping view across mountain ranges and oceans, it is the little valley that draws me in. I feel safe under the canopy of redwoods. I feel at home surrounded by vegetation as far as I can see. To awake next to the river, hear its song, and walk out onto the soft earth covered in a blanket of redwood leaves: that is a morning I’d like to have.

​I did not take many photos on his hike, as one doesn’t take photos of home. They simply enjoy it. Walking along the trails, I could see myself living here—saw myself growing up here—obviously my imagination offered its images.

They say when you find your soulmate, you will know him by the fact that it feels as if you have known him your whole life, as if you grew up with him even if you met at the age of 35. I think soul-places are like that too. When you imagine being somewhere for your entire life—from birth, childhood, high school, adulthood, growing old… that is your soul place.

Like with soulmates, perhaps some people are blessed to have a few different soul-places throughout their lives. I thought in all certainty that Skyline Blvd was the only one: that little pocket of happy forest with its whimsy and sunshine. But being here, I discovered another forest where my heart feels at home. 

​The wonderful thing about places is that you need not choose one over another; you can love both equally, and spend time in both places without the other ever getting jealous. Soul places are like friends—for me, forest friends.

Different friends bring out different parts of you—and my forest friends do the same for me. Each forest or trail ignites a spark in my heart that alights a different part of my soul, allowing it to shine through and share itself with the world. The sunny Skyline Blvd will always be a home to me, but I am so grateful to have a found another friend, another forest, to come and spend time with and light up another part of soul I need to set free.