Up the Sunbeam

-- On a recent trip to the summit of Mt. Tamalpais w ith my family, we walked a trail that circled the mountain just below the summit, treating us to a 360° view of the whole San Francisco Bay Area from the top. At the trailhead, we picked up the pamphlet that would give us information at numbered markers along the hour-long route. At one such marker our paper tour guide told us the name of a plentiful tree we could observe on the hike. The manzanita trees that were all along this trail were a sour c e o f endless photographic fascination to me. They were shedding their old bark in tight little curly-cues like decorative chocolate on a fancy birthday cake. The previous year's bark curled away as the tree shrugged off last year's skin, revealing a brand new, eye-achingly deep scarlet layer beneath. :::::::::::::::::::: My birthday. A marker.  A checkpoint. Maybe a crossroads. Old year me peeled away. New year me underneath. Each birth year, each pass by...