The Forest for the Trees

 

I was lost in a forest, I was young, maybe six. I had wandered into it just playing and not paying attention, found I didn’t recognize any surroundings. Nothing was familiar and it was cold. 

I looked up and saw the sun. It was high above me, I had to pick a direction, so I followed as best I could the light through the trees. 

Eventually, I found my way to a fence around some basketball courts at the back of a school. But these kids were much older than I was. Someone asked if I was lost and I said I was. So they told me to turn around go back into the woods, and just walk straight through it to the apartment complex I wandered off from.

No one could show me, all they could do they did. It was up to me to execute the instructions I was given. So I turned around and started back into the forest. 

I walked a long time, and the sun was going down so shadows were starting to cling to the trees. I would look up and just keep going. I walked forever. 

Then, suddenly, the forest parted, and I could see buildings I recognized. I was three buildings down from the apartment where I lived. 

It was a secret journey. A lucky misadventure. The thing I remember most when I think about it, is, I didn’t panic.

I have carried this philosophy ever since.