Meditations on a country road

I could have gone on forever down that empty country road, but I didn’t. I stopped and began to think that maybe what I was leaving behind was better than the unknown I was stepping into. I’m not a brave person. I don’t go jumping off cliffs or driving fast cars. I prefer the soft sound of wet leaves under my boots, prefer the tiny meow of an infant kitten to the bellow of the unknown. White picket fences are comforting; twisting roads going to places I’ve never seen are not. I figure I should be more adventurous but I can’t seem to make myself stretch into the darkness of what I don’t know. Oh, every now and then I strike out down that country road going to the faraway, but I always stop at the first bend, and then I look back and I see the faces of the people I love and I can’t seem to take that next step. Does that make me a person without conviction, does it make me a one-stop soul . . . or perhaps I’m just one of those people who belong where they were born and nowhere else? It’s something I’ll have to think about. So for now I’m going to take off my boots and just listen to the whisper of the wind, the breath of the land, the soft purr of a contented cat . . . .