What men call adventures usually consist of the stoical endurance of appalling daily misery.
– Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves
Do we choose the journey or does it choose us? How much say do we really have?
I imagine I’ll tell the story of now as a gritty trek through a wild and scouring place. It will be the reason for the deep cuts and silver streams lining the map of me. I’ll marvel at my strength (grown out of necessity in this restless soil) and adopt the progeny of my mistakes as my own kin (oh, how very many of them).
Something will reveal itself eventually. It must. It always does.
I’ll walk around it and peer in from every angle until light hits its center. Then I will draw open the ribbon and measure its heft according to the values of service and creativity I hold dear.
I will carry it to the garden where it can store the sun for everything that grows up around it.
It will be jagged and breathtaking.
I will call it my great adventure.
I’ll forget that the choice was only half mine.
Shannon E. Williams 