The wide open road has lured many people. Some people take the road in search of fame, fortune or even a simple two square meals. Some take the road for adventure and the infinite possibilities it offers. Some take it because they are forced to use it on their way to work.
The concept of the road leading to my front door has always fascinated me. How if we start following it, who knows where we end up!
Tolkien reminds us:
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
Similarly Robert Frost tells us:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Frost also reminds us how important it is to decide which road to take. Tolkien on the other hand stresses on the need to explore and the eager spirit of the true traveller who travels not to reach a destination, but travels to keep follow the road as it bounds ahead of his feet.
As always the poet William Barnes shows us that we ALWAYS have a choice, in his poem Linden Lea:
I be free to go abroad,
Or take again the homeward road.
In the true spirit of the explorer I always used to be fascinated about how as you move away from your house things become less and less familiar.
How among a familiar road unfamiliar sites can be seen. A new secret discovered. A view seen from a different angle. The world changing depending on which road you were on. Different approaches to an intersection of roads.
As a child I used to travel around the highways of North India with my father in our car. I always used to sit in the front. I always used to be fascinated about how subtle the change was as the roads split and met. How first you left the colony, then the area and then finally the city.
The open highway with its small villages through which you would zip at 70-80 kmph, barely registering in your mind. Your attention always on the road ahead.
The slow change in the air, the weather, the smells and that noises. From the quite of the house to the mad rush and pollution of the city and then the wide open spaces of North India! To imagine all this at my doorstep! I just have to follow the road!
But the open road is not always a happy place. It is also a very lonely place. The Beatles have expressed this quite accurately through their song 'The Long and Winding Road':
The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
Ive seen that road before
It always leads me here
Lead me to your door
The wild and windy night
That the rain washed away
Has left a pool of tears
Crying for the day
Why leave me standing here
Let me know the way
The long open road can be a very lonely place. When you are travelling alone or when you loose your travelling companions. Or when the road ahead and behind is lost. When the road leading to your loved one is long behind you. When there is just you and the road.
The beautiful imagery of rain on an open road with a lonely traveller represents the pain of loneliness and a life without love. Where no one is there to show you the way home or to offer you shelter. Where you are alone.
:)
