I walked alone along a path I’d wanted to walk for ages, but once there, it felt much less meaningful than I had envisioned. Apart from marveling about the familiarity of it all, I felt little, if anything, at all.
Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken" is often cited for its themes of individuality and the consequences of our choices.
It describes a speaker who arrives at a fork in a wooded path who must decide between two roads. After considering both, he chooses the less traveled road, reflecting on how this choice will make all the difference in his life.
Sometimes, people believe this particular moment encapsulates the poem's core: the inevitability of choice and the anticipation of reflecting on those choices.
However, Frost’s poem is more complex than a simple endorsement of individualism or freedom of choice or even, as some believe, marching to a different drummer. The speaker admits that both roads were "really about the same" and that they were equally worn and equally covered with leaves.
The fact that the difference between the roads is not as significant as it might seem underscores the human tendency to romanticize our choices. We often perceive them as being more unique or influential than they are.
The poem's questioning tone ultimately challenges me to consider whether there truly is a "road less traveled" or if all choices lead to fundamentally similar outcomes shaped by the narratives we construct about them after the fact.
A few mornings ago, that walk stretched out before me, flat and devoid of any taxing inclines. Admittedly, I felt a little anxious for about a minute and a half. The landscape was more charming than I’d anticipated, with lush green expanses and open vistas, but it was noisy to the point of being unsettling. People were shrieking as they plunged into the cold, early morning waters of the Thames. People were whizzing by in their joggers carrying on loud conversations about soccer. There was litter scattered along the river’s edge, detracting from its natural beauty. I also found the cursing junkies less than pretty.
The water presented in an unremarkable murky brown color that I hadn’t anticipated, lacking any hint of allure. There was little or no current, nor any excitement that I usually associate with large bodies of water.
The small boats that were strung alongside the shoreline wore a neglected look, their once-colorful paint faded, and peeling away as if abandoned by any sense of care or attention by their owners. Dirty canvas tarps covering some of them looked…sad.
Peggy Lee’s, “Is That All There Is?” came to mind.
I missed a turn and got lost, but I saw other areas I had previously known about, which was nice. However, I regretfully caused the two people waiting for me at the end of the trail to be quite late, which I felt terrible about, but I made up for it later, which is another story for another time.
I prefer to quietly ease into the day rather than plunge into the chill of it. Still, walking along the river there was pleasant, and I took some nice pictures of boats, bridges, and passers-by. I had expected to feel a good deal of nostalgic sentiment, but as previously noted, I barely felt anything at all.
That said, I am grateful I could take the walk, as it wasn’t that long ago that I could barely walk at all, but I also experienced an element of feeling out of place there and wishing I hadn’t bothered to go.
The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler,
long I stood
And looked down one
as far as I
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other,
as just as
And having perhaps
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
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.
As an aside, back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Robert Frost, who was, by then very old, knew my former parents-in-law. They were academics in New England, where he had lived and taught for many years and they paid visits to one another late in Frost’s life.
I remember staring at his signature inside a book from their shelf in Cambridge, a book which was addressed to my then brother-in-law, Peter. I recall slowly tracing the signature with my finger and considering stealing it for a split second, but thievery and I do not agree with one another, so I gently placed it back onto the shelf.
I found my way to a duck pond and watched from a bench as the waterfowl glided back and forth across the water. There were ducklings and a graceful pen and her cygnets among the feathered crowd.
I got up and pulled three wildflowers, which I laid on the bench when I left.
I didn’t look back.