Every path is a threshold

in which I walk a new trail

I’m on a path I’ve never walked before. The dog pulls me along, insistent, leaving our companions behind, until we can’t even hear the murmur of their voices (“is it a viburnum? maple-leaf viburnum?”). We’ve crossed a bridge over a muddy creek and entered a pine forest. We don’t know what lies ahead of us.

All paths toe the liminality between the familiar and the new. Even routes we have walked before—trails we stroll every day!—can be transformed to us when something different comes to the encounter. A spectacular sunset, unexpected fog, a sudden rush as a family of five otters charges across a trail, grunting and snorting and whuffing in indignation that they’ve been disturbed. Heraclitus’s old quote holds true: you cannot step into the same river twice, because the waters have changed, and so have you.