A Path to Nowhere?

Down at the end of my yard, tucked away in a shady corner near a gummy old pine tree, is a little path made from fist-sized river rocks. Shorter than a jump rope, it sneaks through a tangle of lily of the valley and violets, curving to end in a mess of pine needles under spindly branches.

Some people in my family say it goes nowhere.

Every year, I spend two or three hours digging up the rocks, removing the plants that have decided they’d like to grow there, and putting the path back together. By the next spring, it is hidden again. A lot of work, for a path that goes nowhere.

Except I think it does go somewhere. It’s a secret in the garden, like the wide branch up in the birch tree that makes a perfect chair. Or the tiny plant growing out of the weird hole in the big bumpy rock. Or the toad that hides under the hostas by the water faucet, waiting for a meal.

For me, that path is the possibility of something wonderful. The kind of possibility I’d like my readers to feel from my writing.