“I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.” Lillian Smith

Has life shaped you like a gulf wind has shaped this Goose Island State Park tree? -- Photo by Pat Bean
Travels With Maggie
Standing in a field of grass patterned with bluebonnets at Goose Island State Park is a tree that’s allowed wind blowing in from the Gulf of Mexico to shape its profile.
It wasn’t much different, I thought on first seeing it, then how life shapes us humans.
For some odd reason, I thought again this morning about that tree, which I had photographed last April when I spent a week with my dog, Maggie, on Goose Island birdwatching. I think my brain was triggered in that direction after reading the quote: “Normal is a setting on a washing machine.”
On finding the photograph, I decided to blog about the message the tree had conveyed to me.
I’m not sure now that was such a good idea.
My thoughts, just as I placed my fingers on the keyboard, became such a jungle of contradictions that I’ was suddenly struck wordless. That’s a rarity by the way.
Do I write about how walking into a newsroom the first time pushed the rest of my life into a direction as slanted as that tree? Or about how coming out of a raft and being pulled beneath it gave me more appreciation of life? Or about how travel has opened up new worlds and new ways of thinking?
I couldn’t decide.
Perhaps some less confused blog readers can help me out. How has life shaped you? I’d really like to know.
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