All who wander are not lost

There is something to be said about spending time with no one else but yourself. A peace to be experienced when you hear nothing but your own steps and the wind quietly blowing past your ears. A clarity to be found when your mind is free from all thoughts of the present, past, and future. For those moments, the road ahead is your only concern and direction  is merely an option.

I woke up at about 11:30 am on Saturday morning. After finishing brunch with my family, I was nowhere near ready to begin my homework. The thought of sitting indoors in my dining room surrounded by textbooks seemed far too reminiscent of the school week that had just past. I felt the need to disrupt the constant ticking emitted from the metronome I'm forced to set my life to. The relentless tick tick tick needed somehow to transform into the syncopated rhythms of jazz flowing from the streets of New Orleans. 

Where would I go? I knew the answer began with outdoors but as to exactly where I was clueless. I had this itching, though, to go somewhere far. Somewhere I could wander alone, a place completely unfamiliar.

Although the drive to Lake of the Woods was less than thirty minutes, it brought me far enough from home. I parked at the entrance and bundled up. The beginning of the trail was marked by a red bridge that led to an expanse of trees. Dead reeds and long prairie grass lined the pathway. I heard footsteps not too far away and turned around to find the source. I saw movements deeper into the forest. When I focused my eyes, I saw five deer. Other than the deer, I was completely alone.

There’s something extremely liberating about wandering. While wandering, the binding elements of our lives slowly loosen. Time is no longer a restriction. Nothing and no one is there to tell you to hurry or slow down. Time may have slowed or even stopped but that is of no such importance while wandering. Each step you take becomes the light ticks of the second hand.

During that Saturday afternoon, small details become just as important and beautiful as the large ones. I could sit in the snow and take in the winding creek and admire the snow covered trees bending over the water. Moments later I could be standing in the middle of the dried prairie grass admiring the small translucent flowers. I could slowly walk across the forest and look up into the sky through the intertwined branches of the trees. I could stop and close my eyes feeling the prickle of cold air on my cheeks. I could walk, I could run. Nothing and no one could tell me what I couldn't do. It was liberation.

I feel that in life, one the most important things we must learn is to how to create our own happiness. To learn to see and find the things that gives us peace. I believe that people don't so much become happy but slowly learn how to be. With such new knowledge comes the realization, the conviction that what makes us happy is right under our noses. Blink again, and perhaps it may suddenly appear. 

Too often I experience the tugging and pulling of the elements in my life. I want to learn to resist them. To bend them. To find peace.