Robert Frost wrote of two roads diverging and the choice of "the other, as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that passing there had worn them really about the same, and both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden..."
Each time I run on the Schuylkill River Trail, and these runs are many and the same, I come to a fork in the road. This fork may fall at mile 12 or, like yesterday, mile 3.
If I go right, the path continues away from the river, behind trees and along the same well-marked/mapped course that appears clearly on the grid - whatever your grid may be; If I go left, the river is a constant to my west with its Geese waking and occasional homeless fighting for final moments of peace. To the left there are steps down, uneven cobblestones, steps up, an edge of water and action. To the right are runners, silence and the kind of shade that holds you in its stillness. The left has had waist-high snow from January to March for the last two Winters, a slip-n-slide of matted leaves every Fall, becomes a wading pool of April Showers and scorched earth in the Summer while the shade to the right is unwavering. Yet still I go left.
Left is, perhaps, this runner's tribute to loyalty and a reminder that I don't always need to stay on the marked course when it presents itself.
Left is my choice to stay by the water because I feel land-locked in this City and, sometimes, on just the right run at the perfect time of morning, the river smells enough like the ocean to free up my feet a bit, lift my knees and return my youth - if only for a moment.
Left, I suppose, is the road taken and it has made all the difference - no matter the distance.
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