A Whole Lotta Paths

What will this year bring? No one can really know. 

Where will the path lead? It is a mystery.

I love the new year because it always seems like the start of a new adventure. I love mystery and adventure and I love taking new paths and roads that I've never taken before. Perhaps this comes from the 'mystery rides' my parents used to take my sister and I on when we were kids. We would get in the car and just drive and perhaps they knew where we were going, but we didn't. Or we would just follow a hot air balloon that we would see in the sky and see where it brought us. I still do this from time to time, especially if I am alone in the car and am not on a time schedule... I will see a road that I've never gone down and just take it. Sometimes it will be a dead-end. Sometimes it will lead to something ordinary and sometimes to something beautiful.


Yesterday, my sister left for 11 months of travel to 11 different countries. I love to travel as well and have been to almost 50 countries, so my dad asked us the other day where we thought we got this travel bug from since he, in particular, does not like to travel. When he asked this I couldn't really think of any explanation, but  now I'm wondering if it would perhaps stem from our childhood mystery rides. Travel involves mystery, exploration, and learning.


But you don't need to travel to have a sense of mystery. Every day is a new adventure. Where will it lead? Where will this path of life take me? On New Years day, my husband's grandmother passed away at the age of 91. What amazing things she must have seen in her life. She was born in Italy (and we visited the town when we were there October) and came to this country when she was nine. She experienced times of war, times of love, had children, and saw the invention of so many things and the world change so much in that time. I wonder if she ever thought about what her life would be like or the path her life would take when she traveled on that boat to America. It's strange to think about how that path led me to the path that I now lead, since I married her grandson :)


Our paths all intersect and influence one another's paths. Every choice we make influences others and our own future path. And yet we all only take one road. No matter our choices, we all move down that road to the future. And we have no idea what it will bring. That's the mystery. That's the thrill of living... and I love it!

What will winter bring?

And what about spring...

summer...

or fall?

Will it be Unusual?

Will it be Magical?

Will it be straight-forward?

Or filled with twists and turns?

Will it be mysterious?

Will it be awe-inspiring?

or Colorful?

Will it bring me to new heights?

I don't know any of these things. But I do know that it will be filled with love!

To see more paths I might take, see a Whole Lotta Paths

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
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.

“May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.” - Irish blessing

Happy Monday! 
(Filled with Much Love and may it be Magical too!)

A Whole Lotta Love,

Adrienne