“Two Roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler… Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference”
Robert Frost, was perhaps 41, when he wrote this poem, “The Road Not Taken,” in 1915. He, as I am doing, looked back into the past years of his life. With middle age approaching, with much accomplished and much yet to do, Frost considered the how his journey through life had presented different paths, and how slight was the difference between them.
When I first read this poem, I, a budding young poet, took it to mean that our choices informed our lives, that the result was a consequence of what broad direction we took, that we were individually responsible for the outcome of our life, the destination at the end of our journey. Of course I was only nine, and as I read the Modern Library collection of Frost’s works, I had no idea of what I now believe he intended to say.
I have recently experienced an epiphany, or as you might say or surely must believe, a hysterical conversion reaction, brought on solely by your love. Notice that I did not say by my love for you or your loss of love for me, but by your love. Memories have washed over, swept away my senses, and judgment. I am now, for the first time in my life, unsure of my outcome, of my future, and this uncertainty brought me to this page, through Robert Frost.
The poem tells me of two roads, the two paths we may choose from when we face any decision. Our choices begin with multiple possible outcomes, and if we consider those outcomes carefully we parse them, we weigh them in pairs, , we narrow our choices and reach a reasonable decision. Frost is telling us that the last choice, is the “either/or” choice; that we attempt to reduce all arguments to the two most desirable outcomes, and that the difference, at the time we take one or the other road, is slight. What the poem is saying is that the path held both choices, that either would take us further down a road, that both were agreeable- after all they were already in our path- and that the divergence, the spread, the separation was slight at first … ” just as fair.” It is only much later when we notice the results of our choices that the consequences become clear.
I made choices long before you were born that brought me to this state of inchoate awareness. I saw a path and took it, I had a choice, I made it. What does one do when the evidence condemns the choice; the early slight divergence becomes a gulf between self and life, the swollen waters roil and drown you? One dies! And I have died.
My vision, years ago, was a life of happiness. I saw myself with a loving wife and happy children. I knew that true love was on the horizon, or just over it, and that I would find that one woman who I was meant to love eternally. I knew that I once I had that love, I would find all other dreams come true as well.
I did not see myself in a suburban wood, I did not see myself with wealth, or title, or of much importance to anyone but those I loved.
What happens, have you asked yourself, if you never find true love, or if found, it betrays you? Where do your dreams go? Where do dreams go to die?
Let me share a dream, a simple thing to share, love and comfort and security without pretense, without the guise of intellect; a love that heals, cures, no need of pills to avoid pain, a love that causes no pain at all. A life shared with another, mutual partners, mutual mentors, each self sharing wisdom with each other. A dream in which there is trust that transcends all fear, where work is done and effort is spent to make the family safe and whole, and all to the purpose that each member find their road and never regret taking it.
I miss the family vacations I never took, the trips with my wife and the kids to Washington, New Orleans, Nashville, Chicago, New York, Boston, Seattle, Los Angles, Orlando. I offer you the battlefields I have seen alone, Shiloh, Gettysburg, Yorktown, Chickamauga, and fifty others. I want to share the dams, every dam in the TVA and a few dozen others , I have seen alone. Come back with me to the Smithsonian Halls I have roamed alone, walk with me through the Rotunda of the Capitol. You and the children come hike with me on the trails I have hiked alone. Betcha y’all can’t keep up! Lay in the warm sand with me, splash in the surf at Tybee Island, and Daytona Beach, and Gulf Shores and why not Coney Island NY or Malibu CA?
I will always cook for you, and often something other than chicken nuggets, though I make them great and love ’em as well, and clean the house, and teach the children to be neat and organized, ( it’s too late for you, that’s why I am here) and I will go to work and make a living for us until you are famous, and you will be! I will lift you up and comfort you and protect you.
I will never be after anything but our happiness, and I will always hold you in the highest respect and deepest regard. I will love you, no matter what, until I die! In short I will take the path that I did not take before, and I will be happy for it.
And if you do not chose to share this path with me, make certain that the man you love will give you all these things and more. Make certain he loves the woman you are, and will not change you, but see you grow in your own way wiser and more beautiful. And be certain that you love the man he is, or you will someday write a essay on life inspired by a poem of Robert Frost, and you will wish you had known, as he came to know, how such a choice can lead to such a different outcome.
This is a short post. It is not a plea, it does not have to be answered, nor even seriously considered, no decision, no choice need ever be made, at least of my proposal. But in the most casual and light-hearted way, I must say how I feel. As Frost said of the road he took: “Oh, I kept the first for another day, yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.”
Is that even possible?