Lessons from the trail, part 1

What do you do when you are on a trail, moving forward, thinking you know where you are going and then…

You come to a fork. And the trail isn’t clearly marked. You wait for something, anything to cue you which fork to take, but nothing comes. And you don’t have time, really to wait. You have to act.

What do you do?


What do you do when you are on a trail, moving forward, thinking you know where you are going and then…


Someone shoves you off the path you are on and forces you to take a different path.

A different path than expected.


My life/my trail/my run

I thought I knew where I was going. I was on the path. I was in control.

I got shoved so far off the trail I couldn’t find it.

I was knee deep in poison oak (I still have itchy red oozy patches on the front of my shin from Thunderbird Lake).

I looked up, but could only see the sky through the canopy of trees.


I couldn’t see the lake, I couldn’t hear the cars on the highway. It was just me, surrounded by nature.

I looked frantically for the path, ANY PATH. Finally, I wandered around long enough to find it, but I didn’t know if it was the one I was on, and I didn’t know which way to go. I just started following the path. There were so many little forks that I felt like I stayed lost. There were poisonous snakes, creeks to wade through, valleys so steep that I slid down them on my backside and had to crawl up on all fours, using roots and trees.

Dirt in my fingernails. Grass in my hair. Tears on my cheeks. Wandering slowly, almost aimlessly, completely lost.

And then I see it. Tied to the tree 50 feet in front of me, waving in the wind. A pink flag.
If I follow the pink flag, I’m back on the trail. I may be going the wrong direction, but at some point, I will know that. I’m either going forward or retracing my steps, in which case, when I’m sure I’ll turn around and go back.

But then I see it, faint marks in the dirt. Imprints of shoes. And they are pointing which way to go. So I begin to pick up speed, walking a little faster. I start running again, feeling hope. Bubbling up inside me, that I’m back on the path. I’m tired, I have some new scars, I’ve learned a lot about myself wandering aimlessly, lost.


But I’m on the path. Headed to the finish line. I may get off course again. I may choose the wrong fork, I may get shoved onto the wrong one.

But I will keep running.