One of my favorite poems is The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. As he waxes so eloquently: “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.” The proverbial “road less traveled” is one that Linda and I are very familiar with. After all, it is the one that led us, two born-and-bred southerners, here to the remote coast of Maine.
With winter bearing down upon us, and a couple of early storms already under our belts this season, some loved ones undoubtedly question our sanity, but for us it is a time of resting, reading, and reflecting. As the above photo attests, the weather is no respecter of structures, even our beloved lighthouse, which temporarily lost power during the area’s first storm. Our power in the keeper’s house was out for less than a day and so we simply lit some candles and retreated to olden times.
With no backup generator available (yet), and a well and septic system, no power means no water or sewer for us, so we plan our lives around the weather forecast to try and minimize any disruptions. And speaking of minimizing, our entire minimalist journey has by definition been a countercultural one, as we have traded some modern conveniences for a more unconventional route to tranquility.
As regular readers know, another one of our tradeoffs has been the exchange of our large library of books for less mediated experiences. Rather than merely reading about the exploits of others we have chosen to experience them for ourselves. As author Mark Boyle writes in The Way Home: Tales From a Life Without Technology, “Many years ago, I decided that instead of spending my life making a living, I wanted to make living my life.”
And on the topic of life well lived, a variation of the statement is the tag line for Maine Homes magazine, which we were featured in recently here. Suffice it to say that the road less traveled can lead us to the very destination of our dreams if we are willing to follow where it leads. So, as yet another year draws to a close, embrace an attitude of adventure, with a willingness to explore what lies around the bend.