There’s a book in my house that gets a lot of play. It’s an unassuming photography coffee table book called “The Oldest Living Things in the World.” And that’s pretty much what it is, a bunch of photos of old things that are still alive. Like a scrub in Tasmania that is 43,600 years old. Or a yucca in the Mojave desert that is 12,000 years old.
It can be interesting and exciting and romantic and humbling to look at the photos. Sometimes it can be all those things at the same time. Someone will come over and pick it up and inevitably say something like, “Wow, did you know there is an aspen tree in Utah that is 80,000 years old?” Then quickly discover, and exclaim to anyone listening, that the aspen is actually one clonal colony of quaking aspen, comprises one root system, and each “tree” – all 47,000 of them covering 106 acres – is just a simple single stem coming from it. And that is what always really gets them – each tree is genetically identical.
And the photos are beautiful. Just beautiful.
My kids love the book. They have grown up with it. We have had numerous discussions surrounding it. And as my oldest prepares to leave the nest a new discussion has arisen – can I go see some of these? What if I take a train over Spring Break to California to see the 4,000-year-old Giant Sequoias? Or road trip with a buddy to see that 12,000-year-old yucca?
What if?
I can think of nothing better for an 18-year-old to do than to spend time with something that lived for thousands and thousands of years. Something that survived and thrived with no regard to humans whatsoever. But whose time may be coming to an end as these humans (who live a mere 70 years or so) seems so hell bent on destroying everything. But then again maybe these old and incredible living things have nothing to fear. Their time on earth will remain - resilient and steadfast. Maybe it is us whose time has come, not theirs. Time will tell, I guess. Time will tell.
–Charles