Many Paths
Dear Friends and Family,
When I was 4 my family moved to a small Hudson River town about a 45 minute drive north of Manhattan. At the time it was semi-rural, there was even a farm down the street (where cows once roamed, condominiums soon blossomed.)
In our backyard, there was a path that seemed to my young sense of distance to go on for miles but probably was about 700 feet. The path led to a pond. In the winter I would haul my ice skates there and in the summer my fishing pole. Such joy!
We moved to a larger house when I was about 10 with new paths to explore. I climbed moss covered stone houses dating from the Civil War and trekked to basketball and tennis courts owned by a seminary. The courts were never used by the priests but provided hours of after-school entertainment.
Many years later, my husband and I bought a small cabin in the woods of Northeast Pennsylvania. A huge boon were paths to explore…one leading to a grand vista of the Delaware Valley. Another to a rarely visited but always refreshingly cool waterfall.
It’s not surprising that walking along paths conjures up sweetly nostalgic feelings. Never more that this week when my daughter, understanding my anxiety after being confined by the threat of Coronavirus, gifted me a trip to the Finger Lakes planning where I could hike.
Yesterday I passed through meadows and forests…along marshes and streams. There were fragrant trees and wildflowers. Jays and cardinals. Snakes and chipmunks. I had no destination so every few yards offered an opportunity to stop and fully sense, smell and touch freely.
After months of worry about masks and hand sanitizer, not to mention the future of mankind, I could just be.
For 20 years I have thought of my yoga practice as a path. Not sure where the next turn will take me but confident that if I just listen carefully, with care and fullness, I will get to a magnificent destination and feel as free as I did yesterday in the woods.