Choices, Thoughts and Robert Frost

I'd been craving a bit of Robert Frost poetry lately in the adjustment to autumn and a coming winter in a quiet, lovely and rural part of New Hampshire. The peak of autumn colors passed a couple of weeks ago here, and while the trees were colorful and the weather beautiful for several weeks, the busy-ness of changes and adjustments in these last couple of months have allowed me to forget just how fast time has passed.

Holderness, New Hampshire, late September

 Campton, New Hampshire, September 26

There has been so much happiness lately, but few quiet moments. I began three jobs (4 if freelancing is included…) in two months and met many new and amazing individuals. Every moment felt filled with social interaction and excitement, laughter and discussion. Laughter, mainly. There has been so much of it recently, more concentrated than I can remember in any period of time. Yet as everything now begins to settle and autumn slowly turns towards winter, I'm left with 1 (very wonderful) job in that quiet, lovely and rural part of the NH. Like adjusting to any new normal, suddenly the silence has arrived unexpectedly and unfamiliar, although welcome.

Grantham, New Hampshire, September 28

Concord, New Hampshire, October 1

The silence first hit earlier this week and once more this afternoon, as I walked alone through the woods. It was a 3 or 4 mile wooded path I'd ran with the girls xc team at the school I work at a few weeks earlier. I was hesitant to embark it alone, fearing that I might become lost, but found that when I did choose to walk it, complete silence arrived, paired with the sudden urge that I wanted and needed to think deeply about the passage of time, about all of the happiness and laughter that had filled recent moments, the moments that I had barely realized had occurred as I focused on all that needed to be completed in transition.

It's as if we possess two selves with different potentials, one short-term focused on filling the moments, and one long-term to understand, reflect and prepare for what lies ahead. Thinking about this in the woods, Robert Frost came back. His poem "The Road Not Taken," seemed to fit the journeys accurately.

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.