Path

Heavily obvious metaphor. It's what most of us want, I suppose: a path like this, a pretty one, with no dangerous traffic, defined, contained, with a long, clear view ahead. That there never is a path through life needs no saying - it's bloody virgin jungle! The path is a story we tell ourselves, a necessary one.

My free newspaper, picked up on the bus this morning, tells in shrill tones the endlessly repeated terrible tale of the financial crisis: mutual recriminations, irreconcilable aims and no path forward. This kind of story, so prevalent in our media, only spreads cynicism and disempowerment.

It's November, month of writing and blogging challenges, and I've been thinking of how happy writing makes me, how I need a writing project for this month and don't have one. Perhaps this is the project: to keep poking about and muttering until I find, buried somewhere in the fallen leaves, the story I need to tell myself of the immediate future.