A Thousand Turns
On a bike ride this afternoon — up off my seat, slowly climbing an especially steep incline — I noticed a few motor bike treads that had been discarded down a hillside off the road. That’s what had come of a thousand turns for those worn-out treads: a trash heap in a quiet forest … a long way from the open road.
S and I were asked tonight about how this journey has changed us. Asked another way: what has come of a thousand turns?
I don’t know — WE don’t know. Yet. Our turning goes on. And our treads still work the open road.
For myself — and for you — I pass along a related quote from The Hobbit. We’ve been reading the story together before the boys go to sleep, and finished it on my birthday. Which was awesome.
Gandalf and Bilbo are returning home. They were “in sight of the country where Bilbo had been born and bred, where the shapes of the land and of the trees were as well known to him as his hands and toes.” Bilbo then makes up a poem about his journey, his path, his return. Gandalf is shocked at what he hears.
“My dear Bilbo!” he said. “Something is the matter with you! You are not the hobbit that you were.”
How funny—we read the Hobbit while we were in China, and loved that line, too! Perfect ending, too, on your birthday! (We’re in The Lord of the Rings now, and it is slower going and harder to follow—maybe that’s because we only get through 3-4 pages a night, due to my drifting off while reading!)