Which Way

Direction of travel is one of the hardest things to decide in life. Or perhaps I should say deciding on a destination is one of the hardest things. If you know where you want to get to then I suppose that makes things a bit easier. But we can still ask ourselves “Should we take the short cut or the scenic route?” Do we want to get there fast or enjoy the journey? And the answer to that depends on so many things.

People often say they have arrived at a crossroads in their life, which is an interesting metaphor as a crossroads gives you a choice of four directions. You can go back where you came from, go forward on the same road or you can choose to take a different path, to the left or to the right. Often this choice is made because we know what lies ahead on these various routes, or at least we think we do.

But sometimes we only know we can’t go back and can’t go forward on the same road and yet, we have no way of knowing where the other paths will take us, to some not knowing is exciting, to others there couldn’t be anything more terrifying.

I want to write about a variety of different paths I’ve taken, ones well worn and ones less travelled. Through vibrant tropical forests and deep dark woods, both actual and metaphorical. I like to think of my life like a digital map, zoomed in there is just the route I am currently on, but zoom out and now you can see a much bigger journey, where I have been, intersections, dead ends, highroads, dirt paths and donkey tracks running alongside wide freeways, rivers and railroads. Ahead an endless branching and crossing choice of paths, place names sometimes giving hints of what might be waiting there or “past this place there be dragons” how amazing that we have such a wonderful world that we can choose to travel through.

In my next blog I will be zooming in on part of my map to view the journey I made over ten years ago that took me to a place of giant anaconda, golden cow nosed rays, pink flamingos and playful penguins. A journey I will never forget and a story that is just waiting to be told. From the sprawling city of Quito to the seahorse islands of Galapagos and on into the depths of the Amazon. An adventure that had shipwrecks, jaguars, piranha and hungry crocodiles thrown in for good measure but never failed to take my breath away.