Off the path

When I wrote the poem I posted a week ago, the one that ends on there being no more paths…there were no more paths. That was the reality after all the snow and I was okay with that in my own way. I’m one of those people who get excited about the idea of forging my own path, at least in the sense of going beyond where paths have previously led.

Then I drove by my neighborhood park where there are several paths and trails – a main one that is paved, level, out in the open – and a half dozen or so that zigzag up hills, into ravines, and are narrow enough swaths through the trees that you can get the feel of being alone in the world, and where there hasn’t been a bit of path clearing since the first minor shows.

Suddenly…there out my car window…were paths, and ones that are, at least momentarily, almost manicured. Along the paved path, white walls have arisen on either side – not the lumpy mess of shoveled sidewalks but a clean and compact wall left and right.

I haven’t walked the snow-walled paths yet. I was so surprised when I saw them that I laughed out loud. “Just when I was thinking there are no more paths!” This one was so striking! There it was, the one and only path. The clear path. The clean path. There was really no other choice available, no way without heavy hip boots or snowshoes to get off the beaten path at all.

This still cracks me up because, of course, I wasn’t thinking about metaphorical paths when I started the poem. I was thinking literally of all the paths the snow had obliterated, including the one to my cabin, but especially those at my park.

The malls, I have heard, have pavement heaters, giant things that clear their parking lots so shoppers aren’t inconvenienced, and the maximum number of vehicles can still deliver them to somewhere near the door.

Now I’m perfectly aware that some of the very things that I like to complain about are conveniences that I’m happy to use. Freeways are a great example. When the city streets are still treacherous with parked cars plowed in, plows making second swipes, cars spinning their wheels and gliding through stop signs, pedestrians and children and school buses…the freeways are readied, faster than any other routes, for safe traffic. I’m happy that there are plows. I’m really happy that there are paths through difficult times, however they come.

But I’m also happy with those things that stop it all once in a while – like blizzards – and unplowed paths. And I get thrilled by where writing even the most mediocre poem takes me into the path of my feelings, that thrill at “being alone in the world” that makes me tremble, that “stepping off the path” feeling that makes me feel inspired and curious and happy, and most of all to want more of it. Oh, how I’d like to live in that place! How glad I am that I do now and again.