A jetty in Cape Cod, MA When I was young, I loved playing outside in nature. In hindsight, rocks seemed to feature often in my recreation. Whether it was skimming stones across a pond, climbing boulders in the woods, or marveling at the strange spherical shapes of pebbles tumbled in a river, I always had a fascination for these quiet, heavy objects resting in the forest. There was a time when I viewed them mostly as stationary lumps of background matter. Ordinary. Sedentary. Bland. Sure, the forms that they took were interesting: cavernous caves, steep cliffs, handheld nodules whose outlines faintly resembled faces of monsters or other creatures. But in essence, outside of my imagination they were not alive. After learning a tiny bit about geology as an adult, I see rocks differently now. They do have their own lives, it’s just that their timelines are much longer than ours. Even though they are not organic like you and me (and the rest of biological life on Earth), they ha...
