The Road Strangely Taken
In which I contemplate how we end up where we end up.
The Road Not Taken
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.
— Robert Frost
In an essay titled “The Most Misread Poem in America,” published in The Paris Review on September 11, 2015 (and excerpted from the book, “The Road Not Taken: Finding America in the Poem Everyone Loves and Almost Everyone Gets Wrong”), the poet David Orr (not to be confused with David Orr the environmentalist and close colleague of my dad’s), writes:
Most readers consider “The Road Not Taken” to be a paean to triumphant self-assertion (“I took the one less traveled by”), but the literal meaning of the poem’s own lines seems completely at odds with this interpretation. The poem’s speaker tells us he “shall be telling,” at some point in the future, of how he took the road less traveled by, yet he has already admitted that the two paths “equally lay / In leaves” and “the passing there / Had worn them really about the same.” So the road he will later call less traveled is actually the road equally traveled. The two roads are interchangeable.
According to this reading, then, the speaker will be claiming “ages and ages hence” that his decision made “all the difference” only because this is the kind of claim we make when we want to comfort or blame ourselves by assuming that our current position is the product of our own choices (as opposed to what was chosen for us or allotted to us by chance). The poem isn’t a salute to can-do individualism; it’s a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives.
Having reached a point in my life of quasi-equilibrium — children settled (sort of) into school, dad settled into assisted living ten minutes from where I live, at home in a house in the DC suburbs where I have lived for almost 14 years, content in a solid federal government job, in love and at peace in a stable relationship — it seems as good a time as any to look back and wonder: How the heck did I end up here?
What do I mean by here?
Here in suburban Maryland, on the outskirts of Washington D.C.
Here working 9-5 in front of a computer screen as a civil rights lawyer for FEMA.
Here with three kids and four pets and a nice house and a minivan.
Also:
Here, not farming on a gorgeous hillside in Vermont, like my brother, Sam.
Here, not saving lives and mountaineering in Washington state, like my brother, Jon.
Here, not living in a beautiful home surrounded by protected land in Maine, surfing in the Atlantic and traveling the country helping school districts like my sister, Kate.
Here, not living in the umber desert, in the jagged mountains, by the wide water, in the shimmering city, deep in the cadences of another country…
Here, not singing for my supper, writing for a living, working with my hands, laboring in the light and the open air, working the kind of strange job that people love to read about, building, creating, passionately changing the world…
Here, not rootless and unbounded, traveling light and often…
And so I trace the path back to the source, and try to make sense of something that only - like Frost’s chosen road - can only make sense in the calculating light of hindsight.
What are the factors, then, that led me here, and not there, or there, or there?
First and foremost, all of the life decisions that led me to where I am were the product of small moments, mostly constrained by the view from my then-window. Growing up in New Jersey led me to a college in Pennsylvania not too close to but not too far from the family I adored. Graduating from college led me to Washington DC, where so many friends were landing or landed. Then graduate school in New York, because that’s where the best school was. Then Boston, because my sister was nearby and a famous friend who wanted me to move there got the superintendent of the Boston Public Schools to call me at home and invite me to teach there (a sweet, and somewhat shocking, stunt). And then back to DC because it was familiar territory and my then-husband had a job and I had a place in the Public Interest Law Scholars program at Georgetown Law. And then, as my family grew, sinking roots deep into the earth here, to anchor myself and them.
My professional path has been a little weirder, but every part of it snakes out from the same beating heart: civil rights. For a long time I thought it was civil rights for children in underserved communities. And then it was civil rights for the adults who serve the children in underserved communities (many of whom come from those same communities). And now it is civil rights for disaster survivors (who are disproportionately clustered in underserved communities) and the adults who work to protect and help them. It is not the arrow-straight path that so many of my friends have followed, but it has both rhyme and reason, and suits my somewhat peripatetic nature.
So that is the fundamental part of it, as far as I can tell: Life for many of us does not unfold as a series of unlimited options. Quite the contrary. Even for those of us born into privilege, as I was, the options are still frequently constrained by who we are and where we are and how we are oriented.
But there is more to it than that. Some part of it as well is the realization that grows over time that wherever we go, there we are. That there is no magic place or magic occupation that will suddenly cure our ills, mend our flaws, and land us in a life of bliss and contentment. If we are prone to quarreling, we will quarrel on a mountaintop or in the city. If we are prone to equanimity, it will be the rare job that breaks our inner calm. Like Sam-I-Am’s tortured target (pre-revelation), if we dislike green eggs and ham, it matters not whether we are on a train or in the rain or in a box or with a fox or here or there or anywhere. Because wherever we go…
And of course there is the bone-deep peace of choosing to live in a place where the values espoused by the community and enshrined in law by the local and state governments harmonize with my values and the values I was raised with. I mean, it doesn’t really get any better than being represented in Congress by Jamie Freaking Raskin, does it? (And he’s just as amazing IRL, as it turns out.) Also, there is the fact that my oldest daughter is starting to ask me to weave Jewish traditions into the fabric of our lives, and in doing so, I can lean on any one of many progressive Jewish congregations in the area (many of which are very similar to the congregation I was raised in). But I also live in one of the most diverse areas in the entire nation, which I chose proudly, despite my own insular upbringing, because it matters to me tremendously that my children grow up in a truly multicultural community. It is the best of both worlds, really, and it suits me.
Ultimately, as I look back over whatever years are left for me, as I share the story of my path with anyone who might want to hear it, I shan’t be telling this with a sigh, there will be no fabulism about roads less traveled by, and I hope I can tell a winding tale straight and true. Two roads diverged, or sometimes three or more, and I took the one that made sense at the time, that rhymed with my heart, that moved me into a hopeful tomorrow. And that has made all the difference.
You are - quite simply - an inspiring and superb thinker and writer.