The first day of spring is a perfect day to ponder the wisdom of trees.

I confess, I had forgotten about trees, the tallest of living things.  So many years in cities, in offices and on airplanes had turned them into blurs on the distant landscapes. But this last weekend, I walked beneath the redwoods and was astounded again by their beauty, their simplicity and their strength.

The air was tangibly different as we entered Muir Woods.  Mostly, it felt cooler, but it was far warmer where the sun broke through the branches, and the scent of pine needles crunching underfoot worked to comfort me like a kind of aromatherapy.  Sounds were muffled and the impact of the other visitors was muted by the trees. Somehow, we felt like the woods were there for just us.  I imagine everyone there felt the same way.

We walked along Redwood Creek into the Bohemian Grove. I stopped at a particularly large tree, and touched the velvety bark, curved and sculpted like a Frank Gehry building.  I felt a thrill at its undulating grace.  Looking up, the sunlight filtered down through the tender green branches that towered above us.

We came upon a cross section of a tree that showed rings that had formed throughout its lifetime.  It was a sapling in 900 AD, and little arrows along the cross section marked dates, like 1492 when Columbus discovered the new world, 1760 when the Industrial Revolution began, and 1969 when man first walked on the moon.  What stories could these trees tell?  What had they seen? What will they see, yet?

Ancient forests like these covered much of the Northern Hemisphere 150 million years ago, before a changing climate forced their retreat.  Now, only a narrow strip of redwood trees remains on the West Coast from Big Sur to Southern Oregon.  They can grow to be 370 feet tall, and up to 2,000 years old. Giant Sequoias, some as much as 3,200 years old, can be found in small patches on the western slopes of the Sierras, and while they are larger in diameter than these coastal redwoods, they still do not grow as tall.  Nothing on earth grows taller than a redwood tree.

Our famously foggy climate is exactly what a redwood needs to thrive.  Born in a region with little rain, the trees collect water from the fog as it condenses on their needles.  As the water drips down, it serves as a built-in sprinkling system.  I remember driving last summer from Santa Barbara to San Francisco and noticing the oak trees dotting the hillsides.  In the midst of brown, rolling hills, each of these trees stood in the middle of a round patch of green grass.  They had the same sort of sprinkling system, catching the moisture from the morning fog in their leaves, and releasing it into the ground throughout the day.  Ingenious, trees!

Redwoods have even evolved to include forest fires as a benefit.  Fires clear out the forest floors so that the tree’s seeds can reach the soil.  Fire kills the bacteria and fungi that can harm the trees, and the ashes can actually add nutrients to their soil.  I think of times in my life when I have been threatened or harmed, and I only hope I can find the same ability to turn those difficulties into riches.

My grandmother, Min, was not a fan of California.  She much preferred Washington, where she lived because, as she said, Washington had “the real trees.”  I wish Min could have been with us last weekend.  In spite of herself, I think she would have felt very much at home.

As did I.

This past weekend, two dear girlfriends and I rented a cottage in Point Reyes, and discovered, of all things, that my mother’s spirit is alive and well.

In the last few years of my mother’s life she became mildly obsessed with butterflies-butterfly shirts, butterfly earrings, butterflies framed and hanging in her room.  And she took every opportunity to tell us how she loved butterflies, with their beauty, their freedom, and most importantly, their powers of reincarnation.  I think it was her own personal campaign to get us to associate butterflies with her, so that when she was gone, we would see butterflies and think of her and feel her lovely presence once again.

Unfortunately, it did not work.  Now when I see butterflies, I think of butterflies.  Sometimes I also remember how she used to obsess about them, but I do not receive any message or comfort from them.

On the other hand, every single time I see a hummingbird, I think of my mother, and her spirit is palpable. I see hummingbirds frequently in the morning on my little walks around the grounds at my home, and each time I see them zipping about the garden in the sun, I feel her. I sense her fluttering about, merry and sweet, busily going from one brightly colored flower to the next as she flits through her day.  Yes, if my mother were to come back to visit earth as some other kind of creature, she would most definitely be a hummingbird.

Our cottage, this past weekend, was on an estuary in Point Reyes and I found myself surrounded by birds.  My girlfriends both came equipped with binoculars and a fairly extensive knowledge of birding.  (I didn’t even know birding was a word.) They were identifying all kinds of species.  We saw seagulls, hawks, Western Bluebirds, Brown Pelicans, a Great Blue Heron, a wide assortment of waterfowl, and, of course, hummingbirds.  When I went to bed at night, my brain was filled with images of them flying in formation over the water and the echoes of their songs were still playing in my head as I drifted off.

One morning, a large, imposing bird soared in took up residence on our deck.  Flapping his giant wings, he landed atop the fence post while we were having our coffee and sat for nearly an hour, watching us inquisitively.  It was as if he felt we had imposed on his environment, instead of the other way around, and I guess he was right.  He came back again and again, and by the end of the weekend, he had become one of our little party.  I wonder if he misses us being there, as much as I miss us being there.

I miss the music of the birds, the surprising warmth of the sun, the stark beauty of the winter ocean landscapes.  But what I miss most is the connection of three lifelong friends, whose light chatter echoed the birds’.  I miss the unconditional love I still feel when I am with them; the acceptance, the understanding that can only come from knowing each other then, and now.  No subject was taboo.  No sin unforgivable.

As we embraced good bye, I closed my eyes.  I felt the strength of their hugs, familiar and warm.  The love was the same deep, lasting love that I would always feel from my mother’s embrace.

I guess my mother couldn’t resist visiting Point Reyes for the weekend, too.

When I lived in New York, Ground Hog’s Day was a day of some importance to me.  After a cold, dark January and 31 days of struggling with whatever new resolutions I had made, before the flutters that might come with a red valentine slipped under my door, this frumpy, squirming harbinger of spring arrived to capture our collective imagination.  Never mind that the ground hog’s weather forecasts were wrong as often as right, they allowed us to utter the word “spring” at a time when spring seemed light years away.

In San Francisco, of course, the winter weather is hardly a burden.  Today, it was a friendly 60 degrees. Some will dispute that San Francisco has a winter at all, although I feel four gentle but distinct seasons.  What I notice most in winter is the darkness. Because I still wake up ridiculously early, it is dark for quite a while, and the sun is down well before our cocktail hour most evenings.  This is the time of year when we just might get dark clouds all day.  And while the temperatures are mild (I can just see the dirty looks I am getting from my New York friends right now), the days are cool enough that you really do stay indoors for most of the day.  So I feel like I have been hibernating for some time.

It is the hibernating that catches up with me.

Now that I don’t have my office to go to each day, and my colleagues to interact with, I feel the darkness of winter more.  In New York and in Europe, working late on a winter’s night had its own kind of warmth; curling up at home on a snowy Saturday was a cozy, welcome respite from the week. Now when I hibernate, the weeks get a little long.  And the nights come a little too soon.

This last month or two I realize how much I missed the comments I would get from this blog. I missed sharing the big and little and dumb things going on in my “life after advertising” with you.  I have worked some on my novel, but not nearly enough.  And I realize that if I am going to be a writer, I had better write.  Writing this blog didn’t, as I thought it might, take away from my novel.  If anything, it keeps my hand in.  So I am going to give it a shot again.

I will take you along with us on the Italian adventure (or misadventure?) we are beginning.  I will share my musings on the day to day life here in the city by the bay.  I will share some of my favorite recipes when I can get my act together to do so.  And I will cherish every one of your comments.  I love knowing that you are listening and that you are kind enough to share your wisdom with me.

So, Happy Ground Hog’s Weekend.  I do not know about Punxsutawney Phil, but I hope you and I don’t see our shadows when tomorrow.  And I wish us all an early spring, with all the warmth and light it can bring.

After talking about it for years, we finally did it.  We bought a home in Italy.

Actually, it is more of a rock pile than a home right now.  But if we can find a way to rearrange all those rocks and add a roof and some landscaping, we will have a home in what is just about the prettiest place I have ever seen.

The road to Roddino.

The Piedmont is, as the name suggests, at the “foot of the mountains,” those mountains being The Alps.  It is in the northwestern part of Italy, the area we fell in love with on our honeymoon two years ago.  We went there again this fall and confirmed that we love it today just as much.  The town of Monforte d’Alba is the perfect Italian hill town, old and cobblestoned, small but with four or five incredible restaurants.  The people are wonderfully sweet and gracious with us awkward Americans.  And the entire area is focussed on wine and food, as are we!  A mile or two outside of town is the tiny hamlet of Roddino, which is where we found our rock pile, surrounded by vineyards, overlooking a valley full of truffles, looking out towards the distant Alps.

Still, we have a gargantuan journey ahead of us. We don’t have the money we need to do what we want, our Italian is still at the learning-to-count-to-100 stage, and we live 5,000 miles away.  But we’ve been boring our friends for years with talk about the home we might find in Italy someday, and we finally realized that if we don’t at least try for it now, we never will.

I don’t know where this winding Italian road will take us.  Our dream home may turn out to be better as a dream than a reality. But it will certainly be fodder for some good stories along the way.

There was one moment that changed the course of my life forever.  I remember it perfectly. It was spring quarter of my freshman year in college, and I was taking English from the one of the toughest teachers in the school, Dr. Cooke.  We had all turned in our first assignment and would be getting them back that day.  He had asked us to write two essays; one from the subjective point of view, and one from the objective point of view. I had written objectively about the function of the heart, and subjectively about my father’s hands.

At the beginning of class, Dr. Cooke began by saying he was going to read an essay to the class, one that he thought was good.  He began reading, and was a few words into it before I realized he was reading mine.

I was never the smartest kid in the class.  I was never the best athlete, the best musician, or the prettiest girl.  I was never exceptional.  But at that moment, for the first time in my life, I felt amazing.  I felt electric.  My whole body was buzzing.  It was the best feeling I had ever had.

There were other times that my writing defined me.  Once, in first or second or third grade, I forget which, I wrote a story about Sally the Seal.  It was all in rhyme and I had great fun writing it.  I used to write for fun, during the summer, or on weekends.  I had written this for fun and brought it in for show and tell. The teacher called my mother and accused me of plagiarizing it.  I didn’t even understand the concept of taking another person’s words.  Why would someone ever do that, I wondered?  What fun would that be?

Whenever life has been tricky or confusing, I have written in a diary, and tried to write my way clear, trying to make sense of what was happening to me by putting it down on paper.

And when it came time to choose a career, I made up a series of “ads,” put them in my “portfolio,” and took them around to ad agencies until someone finally hired me.

Now, out of advertising, I have turned to this blog.  You have been kind enough to check in with me and my ramblings, and I love that.  I love your comments and feedback.  You, and writing, have helped me find my bearings.

A few weeks ago, I started writing a book.  Who knows where it will take me, if anywhere, but I have to try.  I have the first chapter written, and it feels strange but pretty cool. What it means, though, is that the time I have to write will almost always go to the book. If I have something  urgent or big to say here, I will, but the posts, which have become increasingly less frequent, will probably become less frequent still.  I hope you understand.

I will still check in and see if anyone has “comments” for me, which I love, and I will still let you know how it is all going, from time to time.  And if I ever finish it, (or abandon it!) you can bet I will be right back here blogging a couple times a week again.

In the meantime, thank you so much for all your support these past several months. And please do continue to check in from time to time.

I will need all the readers I can get.