Letter from a terrace in Palma 5

                                                                                         3 January, 2016
Good morning,


Paths

         

Alice, lost in Wonderland, asked the Cheshire Cat,

 “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
'I don't much care where -' said Alice.
'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
 

Whichever way we go, we need some path.    Today there are more options than ever before, and how hard it is for young people to decide which one is best for them.

Robert Frost chose the less trodden path.

‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.’

The path, well-trodden or not, is usually forwards, not the back and forth path that we use every day, for example, to work and then back home.  Yet even though we end up in the evening where we started in the morning, we are moving forwards all the time.  It is like walking up and down the same railway carriage, while the train is always taking us forwards.

Many people walk for pleasure, to clear the head and tire the body, and to get out of the confines of the house whose walls can be a prison, which is why we go out and walk in the rain.  Most of these walkers prefer a circular route rather than going as far as the old oak on the hill perhaps, where they turn round and then walk back again.  The circle fools us into thinking we are going from A to B rather than back to A again.  But then we always go from A to B, even when we retrace our footsteps.

The thing is never to look back.  Always go onwards.

Sometimes there is no need to find a path at all because people come to you.

‘Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.’

Politicians and scientists often talk about ‘the way forward’.  ‘The way forward is to do this or to do that’.  This suggests progress and a solution to the mess we find ourselves in at the moment.  Forward, upward and onward. Diplomats talk about a road map for peace as the solution to a seemingly impossible situation where two enemies are in deadlock.  But even the best road map is pointless if there is no will on both sides.

Following a path is a way through the world and is often not the easy option.  Jesus said, ‘Narrow is the way that leads to life’.  

Ophelia regarded the straight and narrow as very hard indeed.  For her it became ‘the steep and thorny way to heaven’, and she warned her brother against ‘the primrose path to dalliance’.  What a pity that primroses should lead us astray!  But then beauty perhaps cannot be trusted, and many have been led down the garden path!

  

Every path suggests that many people have gone that way before. When we ‘follow’ a path, we ‘follow’ all those who have walked along it. But it is still the first time for each of us, however well-travelled the path may be.  Ask young lovers!  

The final word is from the Andalusian poet, Antonio Machado, who found great love and great sorrow in the cold town of Soria,  

Caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.

Traveller, there is no path,

You make your path as you walk.



Yours sincerely