Sometimes the most important decisions in our lives are dependent on whether we took a right or a left.
It use to be that when I left my house and went down my driveway, I took a left. Left was where the boys schools were, where work was, it was where most of my daily life was lived. I rarely took a right. Right usually meant leaving the comfort of my home for somewhere I didn't always want to be. That is how we sometimes define our lives. By taking the comfortable route or taking the route that isn't quite as comfortable. By going left or right.
When I started walking almost a year ago I turned right out of my driveway. It is not the easier of the 2 routes to walk. I find it the most interesting. But it has never become an easy route to walk. Remember the old adage, 'I had to walk uphill both ways'? That is what turning right seems to be. It isn't level and by no means straight. You are always walking to the left or to the right. It is a great simile for life.
Today I turned left. Left is a little easier. Since I had spent so many years going in that direction I forgot to look and see what was there. I became use to the scenery so I guess at some point I stopped seeing it.
Today I walked a little slower and took a little more time to see what I hadn't seen in years. What I hadn't seen was the curve of the road. The road is not straight, not even in the parts where I imagine it to be straight. Walking down that part of the road I could smell my neighbor's wood fire. I could see the way the stone wall had once followed the road. The way the houses are built close to the road or further away, looking down on the road. The trees that have grown old and decayed. Whose bark litters the snowbanks near the road due to woodpeckers looking for the bugs and grubs hiding just under the bark. And further down the road the pipelines of modern day sugaring. The gathering of maple sap through miles of tubing rather than 100's of buckets.
Soon the spring will come and with it what I call 'near' viewing. The coltsfoot or trillium that grows on the side of the road will have to be looked at and photographed. The salamanders, frogs, snakes and other creatures that I will have to stop and take a look at. The interesting rocks that will find their way into my pockets. I won't be looking as far into the woods as I do now. But I will be doing something a little different. I will be taking a right or a left off my dirt road into the woods. I will go explore the road that use to be. The cellar holes that were the houses on the road. That is the interesting thing about life. Being able to go right or left. Face it, there is no straight and narrow. No matter what, life is like this dirt road, it bends, twists, goes up and down but never, ever goes straight.
It use to be that when I left my house and went down my driveway, I took a left. Left was where the boys schools were, where work was, it was where most of my daily life was lived. I rarely took a right. Right usually meant leaving the comfort of my home for somewhere I didn't always want to be. That is how we sometimes define our lives. By taking the comfortable route or taking the route that isn't quite as comfortable. By going left or right.
When I started walking almost a year ago I turned right out of my driveway. It is not the easier of the 2 routes to walk. I find it the most interesting. But it has never become an easy route to walk. Remember the old adage, 'I had to walk uphill both ways'? That is what turning right seems to be. It isn't level and by no means straight. You are always walking to the left or to the right. It is a great simile for life.
Today I turned left. Left is a little easier. Since I had spent so many years going in that direction I forgot to look and see what was there. I became use to the scenery so I guess at some point I stopped seeing it.
Today I walked a little slower and took a little more time to see what I hadn't seen in years. What I hadn't seen was the curve of the road. The road is not straight, not even in the parts where I imagine it to be straight. Walking down that part of the road I could smell my neighbor's wood fire. I could see the way the stone wall had once followed the road. The way the houses are built close to the road or further away, looking down on the road. The trees that have grown old and decayed. Whose bark litters the snowbanks near the road due to woodpeckers looking for the bugs and grubs hiding just under the bark. And further down the road the pipelines of modern day sugaring. The gathering of maple sap through miles of tubing rather than 100's of buckets.
Soon the spring will come and with it what I call 'near' viewing. The coltsfoot or trillium that grows on the side of the road will have to be looked at and photographed. The salamanders, frogs, snakes and other creatures that I will have to stop and take a look at. The interesting rocks that will find their way into my pockets. I won't be looking as far into the woods as I do now. But I will be doing something a little different. I will be taking a right or a left off my dirt road into the woods. I will go explore the road that use to be. The cellar holes that were the houses on the road. That is the interesting thing about life. Being able to go right or left. Face it, there is no straight and narrow. No matter what, life is like this dirt road, it bends, twists, goes up and down but never, ever goes straight.
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