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The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

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.

Robert Frost

http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html

I was walking in the woods a couple weeks ago, around the loop that goes through the nature preserve–the same loop I’ve done many times before. Sometimes I go one way and sometimes I go the other but it’s always the same loop. It’s a nice little place, a hidden green world in the back of a very proper housing development. Looking at the slope of the land, and the enormous rocks left by ancient glaciers I can see why they didn’t build here.

This particular day, I took a small offshoot to the main loop. I’d been that way before, it doesn’t go very far, just down to a stream where the old beam bridge had been cut away because it was unsafe and the preserve doesn’t continue on the other side. I knew where it went. But that day, I noticed something, just the tiny hint of other feet wearing a path–not quite a trail at all–going off along the stream.

And I followed it.

As I came up over the rise a medium sized brown shape scuttled away, into the water or along the bank, I’m not sure. I saw a swampy pond, ghostly drowned trees sticking out of it and blackbirds crying the alarm over head. I startled a pair of mallards and then a great blue heron took off, landing further down the shore.

I sat there for quite awhile, watching the blackbirds and listening to the woodpecker in an old dead pine. Then I followed the bank for awhile, got my shoes muddy and saw a goose sitting quiet, almost dead, on a rock in the middle of the pond. I came back another day, just to be sure she wasn’t dead–she was that still. She had moved on her nest but was still faithfully keeping her eggs warm.

I had a wonderful afternoon that day and spent another hour wandering the woods and exploring, making my own path wherever I wanted to go.

I took a FranklinCovey based time management class at work the other day (voluntarily I might add). I’d taken it once before, a few years ago, and gotten alot out of it. Not so much on managing minutes or forcing myself to get more done in less time–although it could help with that too–as focusing on what’s important in my life, whether it’s at work or personal, and making sure I get the important things done first.

You also get a really nice day planner at the class

There was a short little exercise that hit me. We paired up and the instructor had us introduce ourselves as we were ten years ago (just out of college, just married, etc) then as we will be ten years from now. That’s the part that hit me. There are a few dreams and idle plans that I’ve had in the back of my mind just percolating… because there’s plenty of time, I can always get to them later… But do I want to wait till later? If later isn’t now, when is it? It may turn out to be never.

So part of the class was thinking about our goals and values–where we want to be–then breaking it down and figuring out how to get there. I took one of my deferred, back of the mind, dreams and did just that. I have more goals but I’m going to concentrate on just this one for at least a month or two. Then I can see where I am, if it’s something I want to do and continue, and whether there are any other things that I want to add.

So now, off to learn how to hang-glide Ok, maybe I won’t follow that particular childhood dream but who knows?