Staying true

I stood at the top of the path to the beach this morning and reflected on how damn difficult it is to stay on one’s “path”, let alone find it.

It seems that no matter how, when or where one starts, or is, along their life journey, someone, whether friend, family or foe, will be offended.

The details of my latest offense need not be made public, but as I stood looking down the path and out over the ocean, a Mary Olive poem came to mind:

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.

But you did not stop.

You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations —
though their melancholy
was terrible.

It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.

But little by little
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognised as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver