Writing Challenge Tuesday: The Road Not Taken
So, I’m a closet poetry nerd. Not a poet. You know those people who say science is awesome, and then they’re all, yeah, I know what Schrodinger’s Cat is! I’m like that, except with poetry. Mind you, I’m familiar with poetry. I’m just not personally skilled at it. It’s like being a fan of Morrison and admitting I never sing outside my car on long drives.
However, there are a few poets I’m familiar with, and love dearly. Robert Frost is one of those, because his poetry is very accessible to me. The subtle metaphors in every day themes are great. Apple Picking, Birches, all these things are very familiar to me because I live in a damn cold place, and I might not be from New England, but cold is cold.
In particular, I really love Stopping By Snowy Woods, but obviously (from the title) my favorite is The Road Not Taken. I contemplated not pasting it into the entry because it was hammered into my head by so many high school classes my brain thinks it’s default knowledge now. But it’s not, so here it goes:
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.
Tomorrow is a huge day for me. I can’t say why yet, but it’s kind of a big deal with upcoming awesome news, and it got me to thinking. What would happen if I didn’t make the choices I made to get here? What if I hadn’t finished writing The Long Way Down? What if I hadn’t stuck with Daniel as a protagonist I wanted to write?
So my challenge for this week is this: Pick a decision that you made in your life. Then, write the opposite. Imagine that you didn’t meet that girl/guy, you didn’t take that job, your decided to stay in that city instead of move… And write that.
Big days coming. Time to pick my road.
