Untaken Trails
Two weeks ago, I pulled a thick stack of trail maps from a dusty box in the closet. A pang of nostalgia for life on the road had me running my fingers over their worn creases. On each one, there was a trail I wanted to explore but didn’t. The pull of wandering those paths has dampened and the fear of forgetting gripped me in its fist.
I found myself mirroring a kindergartner by carefully tracing those lines onto a thin overlay of translucent paper. The next day, I lay a careful path of stitches over those lines and affixed the drawings to the wall. I lay my head down to sleep under colorful reminders of steps not yet taken.
I have already placed my feet in more astonishing places than I ever thought I would. And yet, the ones on these maps – the long trails that don’t intersect with any of their kind – are the ones that haunt me from above.
“Will I feel better or worse if these monuments to untrod paths hovering above me? Would I be wiser not to unfold the map at all?”
Depending on the map, a quarter inch could represent one mile or ten. They could cross islands in the ocean, a wash carved by last month’s monsoon, or an ascent thousands of vertical mountain feet. They could take an hour to walk or they could take weeks.
I long for the latter, for the walks where you can both forget and be consumed by the advantages of regular life. Where the colors of civilization require sunglasses upon your return. Where your ears are so accustomed to birdsong that music is tinny and artificial.
Separation is the craving when I look at those squiggly lines on my wall. I want those trails be difficult enough to consume me, but then I want to return. Does this fickleness come from having adventure written on my surface but no deeper? Am I just wearing the decal on my hat?
Will the untaken trails imprint themselves on me while I sleep below them? Would I be wiser to not read the map at all? Will I ask someone to take down those stitched paths if I become unable to walk them? Or will I be able to piece together gratitude for having been close enough to pick up a map and see where they went?
As I look up at them before drifting off to sleep, I loosen what parts of me I can. When it came down to it, even if I didn’t finish these trails - or even start - I’d like to think they were in the right place for me and I for them.
Inspired by events in Monticello, Utah
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