Chasing storms, choosing paths

Saturday morning the clouds were lying low and the mountains were screaming our names.  I was long overdue for one of Rigby's "walk abouts" and I was dying to breathe some fresh mountain air even if it including scouting for deer.

While Rigby is not a destination trail hiker, I am.  So I must say, I was overjoyed to see we actually were going to follow a trail- Woot Woot! Excitement rallied in my stomach as the freshly fallen snow crunched under foot.  It was September, I was in snow, and breathing in mountain air.  Life doesn't get much better than this!

Of course whenever I am in the woods and have a choice to choose a path, I reflect upon Robert Frost's poem, "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.

Parenting has taught me even more about Frost's poem. They will each take their own path- they must choose. Not us. This is sometimes a hard one to swallow. Maleck is our last little.  I love how he make his own trail cairns.  I hope they all will forge their own paths- create their own trail cairns!

 We hiked in silence- we didn't want to alert any nearby deer.  Our hike led us on the edge of The ravenous Brian Head Fire that hit this mountain hard this past

summer.  I was amazed by the striking force of mother nature and of the disaster caused by an accident.

 We watched a storm come in- it was breathtakingly brilliant.  We let it wash over us and sought refuge in the cavity of a rock.  It was almost as if we were purified in that moment- the clouds enveloped us the snowflakes fell upon us, the wind rattled- yet there was beauty.

 The storm left its mark- its aftermath- the clouds, the light, our hearts- the feeling of taking The Road Not Taken, being enveloped by an afternoon storm and then left with its memory and its lesson.


Wishing it was Saturday already- reflections of a mother wearing camo!