Paths and Choices – Photo: S. Abbott

Paths and Choices

When we’re in our late teens and early twenties, even into our thirties, it’s easy to imagine that we need only set our sights on our intended destination and zzzzzip – if we’re dedicated and disciplined enough, we will head straight toward that goal.

A lot of us, I’m told, did just that. We ‘knew’ what we wanted and we went after it. Some of us barely stopped to breathe, even if we managed to find a person to love, and then decided to breed.

Breathe. Breed. We do it. We did it.

Some of us didn’t really and truly know what we wanted back then – but we knew we needed to do something.  So we picked a thing and did it. Set our sights ahead, put our heads down, and did the work to reach the goal.

It’s Cliché, Perhaps, But…

More times than we might like to admit, though, when we picked our heads up and saw where we’d actually plowed our way toward, we realized not only that the destination wasn’t anywhere near what the brochure had described but – wow – we’d missed a ton of scenery along the way.

I could get into some long dissertation on the paths we choose and the end of the road. How we feel about the choices we’ve made when we realize there are no longer an infinite number of choices available nor all that many decades left to explore those choices (if we’re lucky). But naaah. I’ll pass.

The Magic of Choice

The photo at the top of this post, from a tulip festival in Seattle earlier today, reflects to me the magic of choice that we’re faced with all the time. We can walk straight ahead, staying on the gravel path that’s been set there deliberately for us to follow, to make it easier, to make our choice abundantly clear – but which leads to what? A ‘concrete’ destination? Or where? A destination so predictable but impersonal that we need an ID card to swipe us through ‘security?’

Portal to the uncharted – Photo: S. Abbott

Or we can meander off, following the curving cobalt path that needs to be trod a bit more carefully (so as not to kill everything we step upon). And just where does the cobalt path lead? It’s a mystery. Perhaps there is no definitive destination, but the path simply intersects, over the horizon, with other colorful paths that lead to forests or mountains or sacred fires burning on lakeshores that connect us to forgotten sisterhoods.

Vista from beyond the portal – Photo: S. Abbott

That curvy cobalt path sure does look enticing to me.

(T-954)