There is a lone tree in the middle of a rolling meadow of amber dry grass next to a dirt road that leads to an old gold rush town in the foothills of California. The tree is a bare black gash in the blue sky of late summer as if the day had been shattered from the other side. The fabric of darkness shows through the crack. Last night I walked into the darkness of that tree that stood in a day twenty years ago and found a passageway that led to circle room with many doors painted in bright colors lit by the sunlight that came gently through a glass ceiling. Each door asked me silent questions about my life. I could not decide which to open first. They were all important questions, but I knew I had time to try each door. It seems I had found the room at just the right moment in my life. As I turned to face each bright door, I was pleasantly thinking that I had built this room here in the middle of my life so long ago and left that lone tree as marker along the dirt road so that I would not miss it. Planning is so important when constructing a life. You just have to figure out how you are going to find the important places when you need them.