Around The Next Bend February 4, 2013
Posted by nrhatch in Magick & Mystery, Mindfulness, Nature.trackback
Why do we turn page after page in a ponderous book?
Or watch fictional figures frolic through manufactured lives on a screen?
At times, it’s nothing more than curiosity. Curiosity captures our imagination, holds us hostage, and compels us forward.
We cannot break away until we witness what transpires at story’s end.
In life, as in art, the future beckons, urging us on as the path unfolds before us.
And we comply . . . curious to discover what lies around the next bend.
Aah . . . that’s better!
After posting this, I learned (via Janna’s post) that Trifecta chose “path” as its one word prompt this week. If you want to check out other entries, click HERE.
Curiosity tempered with a certain amount of questioning can be a good thing!! 🙂
If we weren’t curious, many of us would give up LONG before we reached the “finish line.”
Thank goodness for curiosity!
I agree . . . some days, curiosity (and chocolate!) are all that keep me going. 😀
How different things would be but for seemingly insignificant decisions along the way.
I love playing the “what if?” game . . . What if I hadn’t returned from St. Thomas after Spring Break my senior year? What if I had moved to Florida 15 years earlier? What if I . . .?
But, no regrets here . . . all the seemingly insignificant decisions led me to this door and it’s a pretty great place to be.
I think about the dumb choices I almost made but didn’t. For example, the party I was going to that time. My ex-girlfriend was bugging me to let her tag along because she was bored, but I kept telling her to buzz off. Mostly because she was a narcissist who couldn’t handle not being the center of attention and frequently irritated everyone else in the room because of that.
It’s a good thing I blew her off, because I met my future wife there.
That is AWESOME! A significant decision, indeed.
Plus . . . you managed to do in 5 sentences what “How I Met Your Mother” hasn’t managed to do in 5 seasons! 😀
Well, that’s uncanny. I’ve just written tomorrow’s post on very similar lines. Beautiful pictures, Nancy 🙂
Excellent! Can’t wait to see it (of course, that’s true of virtually ALL your posts).
I noticed that Janna’s last post is . . . “Unknown Path.” Spooky, eh? 😯
A beautiful statement of curiosity! 🙂
Living life with “alert curiosity” keeps us awake and aware . . . and enthusiastic about discovering what lies around the next bend.
I’m definitely a curious cat!
Sometime we do something “just for the experience” . . . because we are curious about what it will be like. We may not ever want to do it again, but we’re glad we did it once so we could satisfy our curiosity. 😀
Give me a shovel, a sifting screen, Peace River up to my knees and I would be a happy man.
There’s GOLD in them thar hills! 😀
No gold – – – just fossils of camels, cappabarras, sloths, dugongs, sharks, equines, and everything that lived when Florida was part of another continent.
We attended a presentation at the South Florida Museum last year that showed the continents splitting apart in fast forward motion (like time lapse photography). Very cool to watch Florida come into being as we know her today.
I’m a member of the “curiosity club”! I always have to know what’s round the corner or at the top of the hill.
Love the pictures!
As I sorted through photos on my computer, I realized how often I snapped the path unfolding. It always urges me forward. 😉
I think curiousity is a necessity of life.
Life would be pretty dull without curiosity for company.
I really like the photos of different paths.
Thanks, Bee. I’ve been snapping photos of paths for some time without really noticing. Each one is a mini-mystery to solve.
Wonderful reflection!
Thanks, Joe.
Love your photos, Nancy. There is always something that pulls us to see what is around the next bend as we are hiking a forest path. 🙂 Writers who master that technique in their work produce books that keep us turning the pages.:)
Straight and narrow roads are never as encouraging as twisting and meandering pathways through unchartered territory. And, yes, writers who want a “page turner” in our hands must toss a few curves into the mix.
Those bends certainly inspire curiosity, and I do think far more cats have been stimulated than killed by that quality!
Of course, I am always round the bend, but that doesn’t stop me from being curious in more ways than one!
Curiouser and curiouser . . .
I love it!
How boring it would be without paths to twist and turn and show us the edges.
Indeed. Knitting up the rough edges and smoothing out the uneven patches is all a part of it.
Always good shtufffs here, but this one a personal favourite.
Thanks, Hudson! This one’s been percolating for some time . . . as the path continued to unfold.
You might enjoy this:
Dear comerado! I confess I have urged
you onward with me, and still urge you,
without the least idea what is our destination,
Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell’d and defeated.
~ Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
can you hear the echo
What echo? . . . echo? . . . echo? 😉
Love the use of the photos; made me want to go explore a twisting pathway myself!
That’s the way I always feel when stumbling upon a bend in the road. Onwards!
Your pictures are awesome – and I love that you wrote this BEFORE you knew the Trifecta prompt. I’m glad you linked up because I think the post is perfect 🙂
Thanks, Janna! It’s a lovely coincidence to write to a prompt BEFORE seeing the prompt.
And the points along the way are part of what lead us to what’s just beyond! Great way to illustrate…I am always curious. It makes for little boredom! 🙂
Exactly. When we are curious . . . we avoid some of the inevitable “been there, done there” mindset that creeps in from time to time. Because, of course, we haven’t done IT before at all.
What a great theme. Well done!
Love the perspective. .
Thanks, Tok! While sorting through photos, I noticed how often I shot the path curving away in the distance. It got me to thinking.
I love a path unfolding or going round a corner, they take me and my camera on many a voyage of discovery. I have quite a few photos of disappearing paths and roads in my computer.
That’s what I discovered while sorting through my digital archive. I didn’t remember taking as many as I ran into. There is something so enticing about heading around the next bend.
I think that “curiosity” is one of THE most wonderful qualities… and can lead to such remarkable discoveries!…love, love, love it! And I love those “around the next bend” photos..tons of them in my computer, too.
Thanks, Kathy. Sounds as if more than one “curious cat” has captured these bending pathways in stored photos. 😀
One never knows what is…
Nice photos
Thanks, BB!
Curiosity trumps despair. Despair proclaims, “I have seen the future and it doesn’t work.” Curiosity replies, “Well, let’s just take a quick peek around this next bend before we do anything too drastic.”
Oh, but curiosity killed the cat, too!
Fun post.
Yes. Cats must remember that not every bend is meant to go around. 😉
Great questions & so well portrayed through the beautiful pictures & those lovely lines!Enjoyed it thoroughly:-)
Thanks! And thanks for stopping by. 😀
🙂
Many paths… nice.
Thanks, Ted. Here’s to the next bend in the road.