Plowing the Road to Happy Destiny

Whenever one thinks of this journey we call life, one may always call to mind a reference to a road. After all we travel from destination to destination following paths laid down by people who came before us. We have all used this road metaphor. Seneca said, “It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness.”  Agree, although paving might be an easy solution. Someone else once said that the road to happiness was paved with good intentions and The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck has just celebrated its 25th anniversary. Even Dan Quayle tried to use the road metaphor, unsuccessfully, when he said, “My friends, no matter how rough the road may be, we can and we will, never, never surrender to what is right.” Charles de Lint stated, “When all’s said and done, all roads lead to the same end. So it’s not so much which road you take, as how you take it.” So life is a journey, you can bushwack or take the well traveled path, or the road less traveled or just skip the journey and have seat, eat an ice cream sundae and wait for folks to come to you. However I digress. An anonymous friend of mine wrote that he wanted his friends to join him as he trudged the road to happy destiny. I think I will, although first I see my road needs a good plow. Cleaning my side of the street might not be enough, I need a large state vehicle with extra long plow and studded snow tires. Because my mind is running, 24 hours a day and keeps dumping crap in the way. “I’m not good enough.” Or, “life is hard, and scary.” Sometimes even, “I can’t do this anymore.” I spent an entire day wallowing in the fact that I forgot to turn an assignment in, which made me an impossible failure. Where do I find a snow plow in these parts? Unfair question in New England I suppose, but instinct tells me I can find it in God, in prayer and meditation. I can find it by sharing my feelings with another so that I know I am not alone. Yogi Berra said, “If you arrive at a fork in the road take it.” I say, “But plow it first.”

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About Me

I wrote and published my first blog post on May 26, 2009. I was about to turn 36 and had been accepted to Mount Holyoke College as a non-traditional student, on my way to completing a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in Medieval Studies. I had managed, finally, to know what general direction I was traveling. As a self proclaimed voracious reader I knew that I needed a vocation that would allow me to engage daily with words: reading words, writing words, and hearing words. I also needed to eat, so I navigated my way to a teaching position and I began to fine tune my craft. I love to teach and I love my students, but I also needed to continue to hone my own literary technique, voice, and style. I continued my education in order to delve deeper into literature, making connections, and most definitely, writing. I gained more confidence as a reader as well as a writer of both creative and analytical text. That first blog post in 2009 is short, the writing average, and the topic mundane, but as I continued to learn from other writers I began to understand that to become a better writer I needed to write more. Each time I write and release a poem, a post, or a story, I hone my skills. I invite you along for the ride, for this journey of mine as I attempt to wrangle a wealth of ideas and competing directions into an organized freshly paved path to publication. I might get distracted along the way, but sometimes those detours lead us to amazing views and new friends.