A Return

I have heard that not all who wander are lost, but I would add that not all who are lost really mind being lost.

I spent the morning in Rocky River Reservation. I never found my way to where I'd planned to go, and where I was expected to be, because it wasn't where I expected it to be; the road doesn't always turn the way you want it to, and I spent three hours following what might be called the "wrong" one.

I have long been of two minds, one which trusts and one which doubts. While I walked that path, not knowing whether the next turn would lead me to my destination or just to more trees and plants and flashes of river, each step was an expression of my trust that I wasn't wasting my time. I filled my senses with the place, and my camara with the things I saw. Still, I always worried that I would never get there, that I would let people down and exhaust myself trying to navigate this winding valley. That doubting mind was right. Do I regret it?

Of course not.

Even after I spent half an hour climbing a hill which peaked at the top of the valley itself, only to turn around and walk back down, no closer to my original goal but closer, perhaps, to the acceptance that there really was no hope.I have not acted responsibly. I have made many mistakes, and made the same ones many times. I have kept following paths that lead me farther from home and offer little in return for tired feet and lost hours. I have broken promises and left people waiting while I lost myself in moments for which I have nothing to account. Why? My good sense has never stood firm in the face of my foolish trust that it will all turn out okay somehow.

It's not the same road going the other way. Everything has two sides; sometimes the sides look similar, but they are never identical. Even having travelled the road once before, it was still as new to me retracing my steps back to where I had come from. I couldn't get lost going home, though, because my good sense - the same that told me not to trust the road before - knew that it would lead me exactly where I wanted to go. In going home, I was at last of one mind. Hope was long gone, but trust had never been stronger.
My rational mind has never been able to shake the idea that nothing is certain, that everything is subject to doubt and change. It takes that as an excuse to follow any damn lead it comes across, because if we're not sure what's true, we can never be sure what's false either. It thinks it can find a way to believe in everything and nothing at the same time, and for all I know, it's on the right track.

All I have known is the road. I have never reached my destination, and I don't think I ever will. But see how far I've gotten by going nowhere.