Behind my house, there’s a huge rock. It’s not a boulder, it’s not even really a single rock, it’s more of a ledge that just looks like one huge fifteen foot tall, protruding piece of earth coming out of the ground. Dubbed the “Big Rock”, it became a legend around my household, and to four tiny, excitable siblings, this rock seemed like the greatest thing that had ever existed. When I was really little, my dad carved stairs in this rock so that my siblings and I could climb it whenever we wanted, but our adventures always began with our parents warning us with a stern expression, “Don’t go into the woods. Stay where we can see you.” So adventures to far off places and magical lands were always close to home. We would play where we could still see the red and pink tiles of my roof, and we would stay a safe distance from the wall of bushes that led down into the unknown forest.

For years my siblings and I would play, but we would never dare venture beyond the rock and wall of bushes that separated us from the unknown. Eventually we stopped playing on the rock as we grew older and had to worry about our homework, friends, sports, and school. The rock and whatever was beyond went unexplored for years, until one day, for some inexplicable reason, my younger brother and I decided that we were sick of sitting in front of a TV or computer and out we went to our rock.

My brother and I stared up at the Big Rock. It was smaller than we remembered it. We climbed the carefully carved steps and stood on the top of our rock before we descended into the towering wall of bushes. We were nervous and shocked by our willingness to go beyond the world that our parents had deemed safe for us. We were about to embark into an uncharted world, and we had no idea what was going to happen. The warnings that had been drilled into our heads as little kids about the dangers beyond our property left us in a flash of rebelliousness. Our parents were at work and we were bored, so why not do something forbidden and potentially dangerous.

“Are you sure that this is okay with Mom and Dad, Lynette?” My brother Ben asked me as we dodged protruding sticks and Manzanitas.

“Of course dude. I left them a note. Everything is fine.”

“Okay… but what if we see a coyote? Or a mountain lion? Or Bigfoot?”

“Puh-lease. Bigfoots are migratory. This is their offseason.” I grinned at my brother. He smiled back as I jumped over a log. On we trekked into the woods, I could feel our excitement as we went further down into our forest.

What we found was amazing. We walked down a dry creek bed, all the while hearing the rush of water from another creek in the distance, and made it to a little gully that was full of redwoods. Living in the Santa Cruz Mountains, my brother and I had seen a lot of grand trees, but these trees were different. They weren’t huge, in fact, we figured that logging had taken all the biggest trees and just left behind the shells of giants in the form of towering stumps. We were uncovering a treasure that had been kept hidden in plain sight for our entire lives, and was just waiting to be seen and explored. We felt like these woods had been waiting for us for a long time.

Sitting on one of those great stumps that had once been a towering redwood is an indescribable experience. I could feel the moss and the soft patter of bugs under my palms. The moss felt like velvet that had been draped over the charred wood years and years ago, but somehow still remained. As my feet swung above the drop that led to the patchy forest floor, I could hear the breeze weave through the canopy. The breeze found its way to the flyaways from my ponytail that always seem to appear and tickle my face. I could hear the singing of a few birds that must live their whole lives without ever seeing where the clear blue sky meets the horizon. I could smell the damp wood that had fallen from the redwoods and littered the ground around the trunks of the giants. I could feel the looming trees all around me, casting shadows that sometimes made me forget that the sun was shining. When I remembered that the sun lies just above the canopy I noticed the flicks of light that glanced through the leaves.

I retained the special reverence I felt upon first discovering the woods beyond the Big Rock, but the magic seemed to fade for my brother. He no longer returns to the forest, he would rather have his headphones on or have his nose in a book. But I continue to go back there by myself. I visited the woods weekly for awhile, but my life got in the way. I still make the trek down the creek bed and through the bushes and I feel like I did the first time I went down into the gully three years ago. The trees tower over me and make all my problems seem so small. I can just sit on one of those grand tree trunks and watch the squirrels jump from tree to tree, or listen to the birds sing, or watch the canopy sway with the breeze.