Day 8 ~ Write 31 Days ~ 'I Took the One Less Traveled'

' I took the one less traveled'

This quote really describes me I suppose, it is from Robert Frost, who must have had some really good insight to the 'road less traveled'. Frost was an American (born in 1874, San Francisco, California) who moved with his wife to England, met up with other poets such as Rupert Brooke and Lascelles Abercrombie,  who were part of what was called the 'Dymock Poets', named for the village of Dymock, from whence they lived.

Being an American, accepted by British poets was probably something very special, since the British are rather closed minded when it comes to America, I say this with much accumulated knowledge on the subject. The Dymock poets were known for their use of  basic English language, the colloquial terms in their poetry, and the way they used ordinary life as their subjects.

The poem, "The Road Not Taken", was inspired by this group of poets, though it was not published until after his return to America, with it's wistful, colloquial expressions, and the description of something that resonated with the capacious American  sentiment of freedom.

The Road Not Taken

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.

                          ~Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Though Mr. Frost said in an interview that The Road Not Taken was generally misunderstood to mean that you should take the road less traveled, but in reality it was about regrets.  I suppose this still resonates with me. and makes me think about my own life a bit. 

I have regrets, yes, sometimes many of them, but it has been a path that I would not change. I've tended to take on challenges that were not quite what other people would think normal or want to do themselves, but I find to be a challenge. and the choices I've made have given me laughter, love and joy. Sometimes fleeting, but there are those constants as well, my children.

Years ago, I decided to leave college, raise a family, and defy the norm for women at that time. Most all of my friends were preparing for a future with law firms or banks, and I decided on raising children. To me, this was my road choice, the one that was grassy and looked very normal and inviting. Over the years, I yearned for the other path, with regrets that I didn't continue on with a career, and eventually I took a job, with regrets of doing that as well! It seems that no matter which we choose, there will always be that...'What If...'

No matter which you choose, it is going to be that other road you will wonder about. The road that may or may not be rosier, greener, less arduous, or so it seems... once there, it may be full of potholes and weeds, thorns and sadness. Thus the reason we can't see too far ahead in life, I believe.