For a couple of years in Monterey, we lived by a forest. As I learned to walk away from Omelas, I felt a great urge to move my body, so I started to run the trails. With an exploring spirit, Kaya (our dog) and I mapped the trail network patiently. If we wondered where a trail would take us, we would find out. I found the closest redwood tree about two miles from our house. I gardened my soul there, in that forest, with that dog. I saw the forest breathe and bloom, break and repair. Me, too. For many miles and minutes we flew over those waves of earth. Always growing.

Something in me shifted. Rewilded. As we packed up our things and moved up the Monterey coastline, north, to San Francisco and our new home, tears welled with gratitude for a place that cared for us during the strange years of the pandemic. I left a parent. Queer. Radical. Rooted. Stories of becoming for another time.

A couple of centuries ago, redwoods ruled the California coast. What conversation was the forest having? What did the trees know? I call to mind my late grandmother reading the prologue of The Overstory in a redwood grove for our wedding. "A chorus of living wood sings to the woman: If your mind were only a slightly greener thing, we'd drown you in meaning."

Here's what I know. I will grow where I am. I will reach for the sun. I will lock my roots with others, deep underground. I will share what I have. I will receive help. I will be in community. I will be here.

If I only had one word to sum up my philosophy of life, it would be the coastal redwood's species name: sempervirens. Evergreen; always flourishing.