The long and winding
If life is one long journey, how do we know what paths to take in the myriad of streets that make up the history of living? We have all heard about the road less travelled, and the well-worn path, the trees paved with gold, and even the place where the streets have no name. Many a song has been written about the journey that life is all about, but is it really a road? Is it even a journey? What if it’s an open field, or an ocean, or even pure air, and we are not so much walking forward as being tossed around by the forces that surround us?
For comfort, though, I pick the metaphor of the road.
The image is familiar, the connotations are mundane, and it requires me to always put one foot in front of the other, on and on, day after day after day, which is much like how I am living my life at the moment. After loss and heartache and guilt, and while still dealing with the confusion and exhaustion that comes out of them, one can only aim to survive each day as it comes, and not think too far into the future, lest one realize that the road might not extend onwards too much for oneself.
I have been through many turns and bends in my three-and-a-half decades of walking -- sometimes running, something hopping, sometimes tiptoeing -- along this infinite road. Recently I have taken what can be called a literal turn for the worse, and though I want to turn back and take the correct turn, unfortunately, in the unwritten laws that govern the traversing of these roads, that is not allowed. So I trudge on, apprehensive, fearful, yet also hopeful that somewhere along the way I will come upon a side street that will bring me back to where I made a wrong turn, and enable me to correct my mistakes.
I have come upon that side street. It beckons to my feelings of contrition, and assures me that this is my chance to face my fear of the unknown. The longer I look upon the opening of that street, the more it tugs upon my longing to be loved once more, qualify myself for retribution, make myself ascendant to my calling to be part of a whole. And though I know the road will not end there, and though the subsequent roads be long and winding, I will flourish with the conviction that I took the step forward.
So tomorrow I walk into the unknown, armed only with faith and love.
Image credit
For comfort, though, I pick the metaphor of the road.
The image is familiar, the connotations are mundane, and it requires me to always put one foot in front of the other, on and on, day after day after day, which is much like how I am living my life at the moment. After loss and heartache and guilt, and while still dealing with the confusion and exhaustion that comes out of them, one can only aim to survive each day as it comes, and not think too far into the future, lest one realize that the road might not extend onwards too much for oneself.
I have been through many turns and bends in my three-and-a-half decades of walking -- sometimes running, something hopping, sometimes tiptoeing -- along this infinite road. Recently I have taken what can be called a literal turn for the worse, and though I want to turn back and take the correct turn, unfortunately, in the unwritten laws that govern the traversing of these roads, that is not allowed. So I trudge on, apprehensive, fearful, yet also hopeful that somewhere along the way I will come upon a side street that will bring me back to where I made a wrong turn, and enable me to correct my mistakes.
I have come upon that side street. It beckons to my feelings of contrition, and assures me that this is my chance to face my fear of the unknown. The longer I look upon the opening of that street, the more it tugs upon my longing to be loved once more, qualify myself for retribution, make myself ascendant to my calling to be part of a whole. And though I know the road will not end there, and though the subsequent roads be long and winding, I will flourish with the conviction that I took the step forward.
So tomorrow I walk into the unknown, armed only with faith and love.
Image credit
posted by Maryanne Moll | 12:36 AM
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