1.5.12 Diverging From the Path

When you're learning to face
the path at your pace
every choice is worth your while

--from the song Watershed, by Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls)

This song reflects the frame of mind I was in while out walking this morning. Maybe the frame of mind I was in called the song forth, or maybe the song burst spontaneously into my mind and produced this particular mood. Either way, I found myself singing it while walking the island (yes, aloud), and so maybe you should listen to it before reading further and it will help atune you to my frequency of this morning.

Watershed, by Indigo Girls: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mut_T0GcehI

It was another overcast morning infused with titanium gray, but not cold so that was okay. We can't have bright sunshine every morning, although I suspect the sun will be shining in a few hours. Most of the time the sun arrives eventually, if we have the patience to wait for it.

Yesterday's post was long, so today's won't be. I made my way around the island without much pause. Yesterday I ended up taking a second walk, which turned out to be far more eventful that my first. I went down to the shore, searching for a piece of driftwood with which to make a coat rack for our vestibule, and carefully crept along the riverside, going under bridges, climbing over branches and rocks, swinging on vines, scrabbling up hills, and occasionally stepping onto the frozen edge of the river when necessary to get around an obstacle. Yes, I actually did those things. I watched the film 'The Tree of Life' last night, which was rife with the dubious but often exhilarating enterprises of young boys ... and today I think of that film in connection with my exploits of yesterday, before I'd seen the movie. I suspect there are not many men my age who might be found behaving as I do, climbing hills, swinging on vines, etc. Some of us keep the boy in us alive and some don't. We all have our reasons. I'm not suggesting that I'm better than anyone for how I behave (some of my behavior would lead most people to conclude quite the opposite), just meditating upon and reveling in the simple joys that too many people surrender as they age.

The vine I swung on was at least 30 feet long, maybe 40. It hung straight down from an overhead cliff on the island's eastern shore. It was thick and dry, actually more like a branch, and I wondered if it would support my weight or come plummeting to earth the moment I embraced and swung into space upon it. It held, and I live to tell the tale.

Further along, at the very northernmost tip of the island--on the shore, some 30-40 feet directly below where I had stood earlier that day to snap my picture of the northern vista--I happened upon two other humans, a man and his young daughter. Soon we were chatting like old friends and walking along the western shoreline together. This is how friends are made, just like when I was a boy. Kent and Ivy, it was wonderful meeting you and I hope to see you both again soon. I even wound up showing my new friends where I lived and inviting them to drop by and ring my bell anytime they are on the island. I meant it, and hope they won't hesitate to do so.

But getting back to today: I made my uneventful way around the island. Christmas ball: still in place (yippee!). It pleases me to think that others may happen upon that location, see the ball hanging on the tree, and feel that they'd stumbled upon a little bit of magic in their day. It pleases me to think that I may have been responsible for bringing a little magic into someone else's day. I guess I'll stop mentioning that Christmas ball now, until the day it vanishes. Because, eventually, all magic does.

When I'd reached the railroad tracks, very near the end of my circuit, I decided to diverge from my usual path and instead walk along the tracks heading west. This path would take me underneath the stone bridge bisecting the center of the island and to W. Island Avenue. This bridge is an intra-island bridge, and exists solely to permit one to bypass the train, should one be passing at a time when you wish to leave the island (by car).

I walked along the tracks, and as I dipped underneath the bridge, encountered the following:

I do not know who Timothy George Benton ("Bennie") was, but someone clearly cared about him and misses him.

Okay, I just googled him (the Age of Google continues to astound and delight me) -- I found his obituary, which begins thus:

Benton, Timothy George "Bennie,'' April 20, 1952 to Dec. 3, 2002. Our brother who touched so many lives. He walked his own path through life. He is gone. We shall miss him still.

It goes on to list the relatives he left behind, who loved him and will miss him. But isn't the wording remarkable--the fact that it mentioned having "walked his own path through life." After I had titled this post and begun writing it upon the theme of choosing a "path." I swear I did not google this obituary until AFTER I had begun writing about this photo.

What a wonderful example of the serendipitous magic that occurs in life, when we write and ponder and explore our lives and the lives of others--when we take the time to do so in these busy modern times. We discover how interconnected we all are, how similarly we think and behave and care for one another, even though it is often far from obvious and very easy to miss.

I then noticed something else, on the ground about two feet in front of the cross:

I began to reach for the railroad spikes, as I thought they might be useful as 'hooks' for the coat rack I was planning, but then caught myself as I noticed that these crude artifacts actually spelled out TIM. Pretty cool, I thought. Someone really took some time and invested some love in this small tribute, beside the railroad tracks, underneath a bridge, and just a stone's throw north of DeLaSalle High School, where Timothy George Benton ("Bennie") was evidently known by at least some students. (The web page containing the obit also contained a couple of comments from DeLaSalle students.)

I concluded my inadvertant visit to Bennie's shrine, continued along the tracks a short way, then brought my little detour to an end as I returned to a path that led almost directly to my home (and there's that word again: path).

Life flows on, in and around us--there are so many paths open to it, and we each get to choose our own.

D.E.S.