“I’d like to put in a couple of paths,” Tom said. He led me around the side of the house and gestured to the grassy path that leads between the rhododendron and the daylily bed toward the back porch. “Here’s one place–get the sod up, put down some bark mulch with rock edging.” “Sure,” I said. “Less to mow.” He then headed toward the area with the raised bed. There’s already a dirt path of sorts that cuts around the edge of that bed toward the side where the water faucet is. “And here,” he said, “put some bark mulch here, make a real path.”

In fact I don’t know if this will happen this year, especially the path that requires digging up sod–it might end up being more $$$ than I want to invest in garden projects. But it got me thinking about paths. These would be useful, logical paths, places I already walk regularly, sensible paths.

But I’m intrigued by whimsical paths. I’ve created a few of these over the years although they’ve all ended up overgrown. When I put in the bed in front of the maple in the front yard I made a path curved through the middle. It was partly practical–gave me weeding access–but it was also a path to nowhere and that entertained me. It soon became home to Siberian iris volunteers and is now just part of the bed. There was another path I made into the middle of the circular bed in the front—I even put down paving stones and placed a bird bath in the middle, hidden from view unless you walked along the path–but that path too became overgrown and the bird bath now sits in the back yard.

And this is all an interesting metaphor, of course, for paths through writing—or simply through life.