Walk in the Woods

City girl that I am, I spend most of my life pretty disconnected from nature. Every once in awhile that starts to make me feel restless.

Not too far from our house is a nature park. Bear Grylls would laugh at my even calling it nature, but for me, it provides trees, wildlife, a creek and serenity; and even if most of the paths are paved, I do have the option to leave them.

My favorite time to go there is when it is raining because the chances of running into anyone else are minimized creating the illusion of truly being out in the wild.

Yesterday, as I walked, I was listening to my MP3 player. (Stop laughing, Bear. It drowns out the traffic noise.) Switchfoot was singing, "This is your life. Are you who you want to be?" For some reason those types of questions seem more profound walking through a canopy of branches and leaves.

As I thought about the question, I found that I kept confusing "who I was" with "what I'd done." There's still so much more to do. I still want to learn to play harmonica. Still want to go to Scotland with John and visit Guanajuato with Elsa. Still want to complete my book on The Power of Story. Still want.... well, the list is endless. But when I shifted my focus to who I was, I found that there is a "still want" list there too.

The song asked "are you who you want to be?" Maybe, the question really should be "are you who you want to become?"

I hope I never stop becoming.