This morning I stepped down from the road at my normal spot to make my way along the worn trail that winds around the inlet. The water was quiet-morning-glass. The sky was deep December gray. I could hear the breakers from beyond the outer beach spit. Perfect walking conditions but for the tide – it had flooded over my path.

What to do? Turn back? Slosh through cold ankle deep water? Find another path to go the same way?

Looking to my right, I saw for the first time – a path, less worn but winding in the same direction. 

At first the new way was easy. Slightly bent march grass showed the way clear enough and provided a soft landing for each step. The going was actually easier. Then the path stopped – blocked by a low lying tree that stretched beyond the high tide line. Again the choices were presented: turn back, slosh into the cold water, or find a new way forward. I moved into the web of leafless branches. My jacket caught on a bramble. A broken branch jabbed into my leg. I bent and reached through the limbs.

Fully committed, I walked on. As I navigated more barrier trees, climbed over piled rocks, and pulled apart tangled briars, I found myself paying attention to everything. My wonderings about a past I could not change and worryings about a future I could not control gave way to the simple pleasure of the immediate: left foot, right foot, left foot again. 

When I reached the bottom of the steps I always climbed to return to the road that leads back to my home, I straightened my hat pulled crooked by the briars, rubbed at the spot where the branch had dug into my thigh, and straightened my back from being bent and stretched so many times over.

I had arrived where I had imagined my walk would take me, but the tide had invited me to choose a different way. At first a rebuff, then a frustration, the new path had given me cause to pay attention to my walking and step away from things if just for a while. To breathe, to forget, to not look too far ahead, and most of all to be grateful.

Peace,
Chris