Thanksgiving is upon us. Our annual elaborate production as we gather family and friends to proclaim togetherness. We remember ties to the past, celebrate milestones of today and anticipate hopes for the future. At my house, I always choose a poem to begin our feast. This Thanksgiving, I am honoring Robert Frost’s classic poem, “The Road Not Taken.” I think our best poets and writers do not provide us with answers, but provoke us to find our own truths. As we come together to give thanks and reminisce over this past year, take to heart the admonition in this memorable poem.
“The Road Not Taken” was probably studied in middle school and in many cases has been misinterpreted. Those “two roads that diverged into a yellow wood,” mark a symbolic crossroads in all of our lives where two choices were presented to us and we chose one over the other. Perhaps we have regretted our choice. We may delude ourselves that if only we had picked the other path, our life journey would have been better, happier or smoother. The grass is always greener, after all.
But that is to misread the lines. Frost says that the two roads were “worn…really about the same” and equally covered by leaves. Frost asserts that at moments of decision, we immediately regret the choices we make and rationalize that we should have swayed. When making critical decisions, we like to blame ourselves for the wrong choice. Instead, Frost reminds us that our choices are our own, determined by free will and to trust the path we have taken down the road of life. Both roads offer us a chance to explore the hidden crevices and unearth new revelations. Each road ends in a different place, but one is neither worse nor better.
This Thanksgiving, “The Road Not Taken” reminds us to praise individuality. To give thanks for the freedom to be who we are, to be gracious for all the choices we have. To cherish the many paths-to take a chance to stumble, to jump over wild streams, to gaze at beauty, to be cautious of danger, to fight through the brush, and step-by-step arrive at the end. That makes all the difference. We are who are by the everyday choices we make.
May all the paths you encounter be a chance to travel “the first for another day” as life continues to wind down in ways unknown to us right now. Happy trails this Thanksgiving.
