Chapter Four

I woke up that first Saturday with Salazar’s voice in my head. According to him, San Francisco was the best city in the world to be alone. I decided to give this theory a try and ordered a taxi to take me to the Muir Woods National Park, home of the redwoods: the tallest trees on earth.

The past week of work had been overwhelming, leaving me exhausted by the time I would get home. I had hardly left my apartment that week so that taxi ride was my first real taste of the city. The driver’s name was Sean, a stocky, dark-haired man in his forties. He explained that he first came to San Francisco over ten years ago from Chicago on vacation. He’d been there ever since.

“What is it about the city that made you stay? Especially coming from Chicago?” I asked.

I saw Sean’s cheeks raise in a smile from the rear view mirror. “The better question, kid, is what’s gonna make you stay? For me it was one of my first nights on vacation. I was visiting with my fiance. The sun hadn’t set and the temperature was perfect, so we decided to walk to our dinner reservation. It was a mile and a half away, but we had nothing better to do. It feels like yesterday; we were walking up the steps on Telegraph Hill towards the Coit Tower. We were out of breath by the time we reached the top. From the Coit Tower, you get the best view of the city. My now wife and I spent twenty minutes up there. The air was pure with a hint of salt from the sea and the sun was just setting. We looked at each other with an understanding in all four eyes that seemed to say ‘I get it.’ From that moment forward, we never looked back.”

“Wow. That’s actually incredible. Thank you,” I replied as earnestly as I could. Something about the people there seemed so genuine.

To get to the Muir Woods from San Francisco, you have to cross the Golden Gate Bridge. I have pictures of me standing on the bridge from when I was a kid, but this was really the first time I would remember seeing it. I was beginning to “get it” myself. By the time we crossed, Sean explained that we still had another fifteen minutes of winding roads to get down to the national park’s visitor center. Once we got there, I thanked Sean, tipped him, and immediately felt alone as I saw his minivan head back up the hill.

I instantly regretted not bringing a jacket. In hindsight, I should have known that the tallest trees in the world would probably cast the biggest shade in the world. The sunny and sixty-five in San Francisco did not apply to what I felt in the park.

Hi, Mom. I wonder if Salazar would consider this cheating. In truth, I’ve never felt alone since I started talking to you. Maybe what he meant was to be physically alone. Let’s go with that.

Look at us, Mom. You ever think I’d be here? I guess if you could answer, you’d say something along the lines of, ‘of course, I knew you could do it.’ Well, that makes one of us. And how about that conversation with Salazar? I made it all the way here and he tells me I need to learn how to be alone? I guess I’ll give it a shot.

I walked into the service center. It was a small, circular wood building. Inside was a long line waiting to buy tickets, so I decided to walk around the gift shop while the line shortened. The store was covered in tee shirts picturing bears hugging trees, walking sticks, and a bookshelf in the corner. I made my way to the bookshelf and saw books about John Muir, FDR, and surprisingly enough, Henry David Thoreau. Talk about a man that learned how to be alone. I had never read Walden but knew enough to know that it took place on the east coast, not the west. Regardless, I made a mental note to pick up one of his books on my way back. I figured if someone could teach me how to be alone, it must be him.

Once the line died down, I bought my ticket, grabbed a visitor’s map, and set off to be alone; to “find the self” as Salazar would say. The thing about the park is that it is quite literally just a forest. Yes, there are some paths to follow, but for the most part, there is little signage and hardly any guidance of what “path” to take.

I saw a family enter the park and take the trail to the left. My first instinct was to follow them loosely from behind, but the quest for being alone told me to take a right instead.

The trail started fairly flat and straight, but as I walked, I noticed more discrete dirt trails veering off from the main path. Eventually, curiosity got the best of me and I took a sharp right. Immediately, this path began to incline. With uneasy footing and the trail requiring me to lunge from one big rock to another at times, I kept my head down and kept climbing. Soon enough, I began to hear my own breath get heavier and I silently thanked myself for forgetting that jacket: I was now sweating.

Head down, this climb continued for what felt like an hour when I felt the back of my neck start to burn with exposure to the sun. I looked up to find myself amongst the canopy of the redwoods. All I could do was stare at the mass of forest below me that stretched out as far as I could see. My reaction was a struggle between silence and the desire to yell at the top of my lungs. For the sake of those around me, I chose the former. Out of breath and sweating, I bent over my knees and took some big inhales, breathing what could have realistically been the purest air in the world into my lungs. I felt entirely alive, in touch with the earth and with my place in it. At the top of the path, I found a log and sat down, figuring this would be the best place in the park to just be.

Mom, why is it that when we experience nature like this, everything else in the world seems so unimportant? I wonder if it’s the fact that these trees have outlasted every manmade disaster. The world feels so small from up here. I feel as though I could live right here on this log for eternity, breathing in this redwood air. But of course, I can’t.

Mom, I think there are people and places on this earth that allow us to see our soul. I somehow connect with this heightened elevation in a way that words cannot describe. It feels as though I am in touch with this life force within myself that I never knew was there before. In the Muir Woods National Park, I’m finding much more than the tallest trees, I am indeed finding myself like Salazar told me I would. And the spirit of man is God’s greatest creation.

The real question is, how can I bring this feeling of inner peace and bliss to my world outside of the park? To my internship? College?

I guess the only answer is to soak this feeling into my soul; to remember the feeling, but most importantly, to remember that it exists in the first place.

I remained sitting there alone for quite some time. It could have been for five minutes or for two hours, I’m not quite sure. I was completely lost in the canopy and in the process of soaking that moment into my soul. This was a feeling I never wanted to forget.

I snapped back into the present when I heard a little girl yelling at her father. She was yelling at him to catch up to her as she ran up the dirt trail towards me. For the first time in my life, I felt what it was like to be a father, or rather something close to that. My paternal instincts forced me off my log, scared that the girl would trip and fall down the steep decline down to the brush below. Sure enough, she tripped over a protruding root in the path, but thankfully only stumbled on her knees. Nevertheless, the laughs turned to tears and I rushed forward to pick her up.

By the time her dad reached us, we had brushed the dirt out of her hair and had reduced to sobs to minor sniffles. After assessing the damage of minor scrapes on her knees and exchanging “your welcomes” with her mom and dad, I decided that this was my good deed for the day.

Now out of my day dream state, I assessed my own situation and continued walking around the park. My phone said it was only four o’clock which meant that I had probably another two hours before I had to head back home.

The canopy view trail eventually led back down to ground level where I walked amongst the bases of massive tree trunks. Some of them had hollowed out throughout years of erosion so large you could park a car inside of them. I continued along the path which crossed streams that could only be crossed by walking across fallen trees. I saw plenty of animals, though no bears despite the multiple warning signs. On this path, my mind was completely clear: just focusing on the next step forward, perfectly submerged in my surroundings.

I then came across a grove dedicated to President FDR. After he died, members of the United Nations came to pay respects and honor his life at that site. What remains is a plaque that read,

“Here in this grove of enduring redwoods, preserved for posterity, members of the United Nations Conference on International Organization met on May 19, 1945, to honor the memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, thirty-first President of the United States, chief architect of the United Nations, and apostle of lasting peace for all mankind.”

At a place of complete bliss and peace, it’s amazing that world leaders could gather in that grove during the worst war this earth has ever seen. That’s irony for you. I wonder if Truman knew that he would drop the world’s first atomic bomb less than three months later.

As I continued, I lost track of all sense of time. By the time I looked at my phone, the sun was starting to set. My heart race instinctively increased and my breath instantly shorted. I began to feel human again. Quickly, I decided to turn around and retrace my steps, not knowing if the trail I was on ever looped back to the entrance.

By the time I got to the welcome center, the staff had already left and daylight was rapidly fading. I opened my phone to call a taxi, but realized that I had absolutely no cell service. I was trapped.

Recalling my ride there with Sean, I remembered that the main road was at least a fifteen minute drive away up winding, narrow roads. That would be at least an hour walk and it would surely be dark by the top I got to the top. And even when I did reach the main road, there was no promise that I could find a ride across the bridge back to San Francisco. I began desperately pacing the parking lot, looking for anyone that could drive me to the top.There were hardly any cars left in the lot and no sign of their owners. I was alone.

After ten minutes of frantic searching, I took a seat on a bench. The sun had set and it was getting darker by the minute. I once again wished that I brought a jacket as the temperature dropped to the mid forties.

Mom, what the hell just happened. Here I am freezing in the middle of nowhere, wearing nothing but athletic shorts and a t-shirt. All for what? To be alone? Salazar, this isn’t enlightening, this is dangerous. I’m so glad that I came here to “find myself”– I hope when they find my dead body I’m not frozen to this bench.

On my tombstone I hope it reads ‘Here lies Joel Caldwell. He went into the wilderness to be alone. May he have better luck in the next life.’ Well, Mom, if I don’t get off this bench soon I’ll be joining you in no time; and no offense, I’m not quite ready for that.

I stood up, prepared to start the climb up that winding road when I heard a familiar noise. It was a yell. And then a laugh. I scanned my horizons in the now bare minimum light remaining and saw the same little girl from the afternoon.

I ran towards the headlights of the girl’s car, praying that the chances of my exodus rested with this sole vehicle. The parking lot was too far away to simply yell after a family, so I worked up a light jog with hopes that they would not mistake me for a lunatic and speed away.

When I got close enough, all I had in me was to yell “help,” but the word came out in less than a yell and more of a breathless whisper. I was now standing in front of the headlights as the family looked at me from within the security of their car. Yelling and dramatically pointing to the road, I must have seen like a mad man when the little girl’s father rolled down and uttered the three most pleasant words in the English language:

“Where ya headed?”