Pathways

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I take issue with the popular interpretation of "The Road Not Taken," by Robert Frost. But for the moment let's put that aside, and just say that a clearly marked pathway is something every man or woman should quietly celebrate.

When I am in Kentucky I often shun Clinton's aging and precarious sidewalks and head straight for the deer paths around Threeponds.  As I leave the cornfield and step high into the woods there is a moment of getting my bearings.  Like my whippet, I zigzag here and there trying to catch sight of a trail.  Then it happens: an opening in the brambles and before me a narrow but well-trampled path. Follow the way of the deer and you'll edge easily along the precipice, skirt the side of the hill, descend along the jagged  sandstone outcroppings, step over fallen trees, and finally, effortlessly, arrive at the ancient track of the river.

Returning to San Francisco I can, with equal pleasure, chose my route among a dozen or more worn paths.  Tracks snake through the forested medians along Park Presidio and into the hillsides of Golden Gate Park.  At the far edge of the neighborhood is Land's End, a winding scar of a trail that seams the hillside to banks that plummet toward the surf.  When I walk these paths my eyes are drawn to the ocean, but my heart celebrates the predictable trail beneath my feet. On a good path the choices are easy, and there's an abiding knowledge that the solitary walker is never really alone.

All of my favorite trails have forks here and there, and as I select my route I sometimes think about Frost's poem. Instead of being a hymn to individualism, I believe his lines are really about the all-too-human condition of making a decision: standing at a crossroads and then striding forth, confidently, in one direction or another.

Life's traveled pathways offer linear perspective. They're a way to know--without a doubt--what road you've taken. These trails also chart the forks where, sometimes with so little thought at all, we've made a life-defining choice.