We are on a path to somewhere. This path is not a straight one. This is not a concrete path across an urban landscape. This is not the asphalt of a newly groomed forest preserve trail. This is not the path leading to grandma’s back door. Where the porch door is always lighter than you expect and shuts with an antique brusqueness. Where home fried potatoes, sausage hamburgers, or anything else dreamed can be asked for and readied with excitement. Where the smell of healing salves, freshly read newspapers, and wisdom anchor themselves to every fabric in the reading room (because the TV is not for watching).
Nope. This is an ancient path we’re on. One troddened by the Mayans some 1200 years prior. Up mountains and over rocky terrain. Where you can’t see but two feet in either direction. Great green overgrowth obtusely dissolving any trace of us having been where we stepped but 10 seconds prior. This path though rough is still a natural one. We must trust the path as the animals have to come to trust it. The duality of this path is that it both leads and masks our way. We know where we want to be, but we don’t know where we’re going.
Trusting this path will no doubt lead us to a cliff. Upon reaching this cliff we must descend it and we will no doubt find the descent easier than imagined. But by reaching its summit we will have found ourselves at a beach with it’s familiar and uplifting smells of freedom and fish. The weight of our journey will have been forgotten and only an ocean of possibility will be at our feet.
