Penelope Todd

Make your own allegory

On the most interesting walks, only a short portion of the track is visible at a time. Unless you’ve travelled that way before, you can’t know what lies around the next corner. Or the one after that. If you could see the tiger crouching up ahead (or, let’s get local, the dead possum ponging, or the tract of pure, shoe-sucking mud), you might stay home. This is my niece Zeynep on the outskirts of Naseby, setting off toward Mt Kyeburn. She has what she needs for the forseeable future: sunhat, sturdy shoes, semi-reliable and curious companion tethered by affection and a red lead.

Penelope

6 responses to “Make your own allegory”

  1. Thanks for pooping, NO! — popping up — on the path here, Claire and Pam. The fact that we never walk entirely alone, and sometimes with arms firmly linked, makes all the difference.

  2. In the last day or two – was it a dream? – I heard the saying: we create the path by walking it. (or some such thing). Interesting idea. Are we choosing the bends too? If so, how wise we are. Happy travels my friend. (And glad to be one of your walking companions.) Px

  3. . . . isn’t this the way? We have what we need for any given moment, even when it seems we don’t (which can be often)? And what we don’t have we will find so long as we keep putting one foot in front of the other? Mostly, what we need to negotiate the next bend is either already ‘in hand’ or just a wee way ahead of us – seldom (if ever?) behind. How hard it can be to not look back, though, to what we’ve known, to the story we’ve already written that has the tricky touch of familiarity (and, therefore, comfort?) about it.

    Napping on the side of the path is surely every bit as important as skipping or trudging? I hope so!

    Thanks for providing this inroad, Pen. x

  5. Some days that’s reassuring (and exactly what I ask of life — to keep surprising me). Other days I just want to lie down by the track and sleep in the long grass. That’s the Friday feeling. Thanks for wandering this way, Marylinn. And may the kind and loving voices be strident.

  6. One way in which I reassure myself is with the knowledge that (choosing my allegory) I have never taken this path before and the not knowing what is around the bend is nearly the only thing I do know.