The Path We Walk Together

I was walking home from the grocery store this afternoon when a group of neighborhood kids started following me, just for a block or two. They were laughing about something I couldn’t quite hear, their voices bright and sharp against the quiet street. For a moment, I felt like an intruder in their game, but then one of them looked up, smiled, and kept running. It was such a small, fleeting intersection of lives. We spend so much of our time trying to map out our own private destinations, convinced that our path is a solitary one. Yet, we are constantly brushing shoulders with strangers who are moving toward their own versions of home or discovery. It makes me wonder how many of our most significant memories are actually just brief, unscripted overlaps with people we will never see again. Does the road feel any shorter when there is someone else walking beside you, even for a little while?

Ryszard Wierzbicki has captured this feeling perfectly in his image titled Around Bodh Gaya. It reminds me that the most beautiful parts of a journey are often the people who decide to share the path with us for a few miles. Who has walked alongside you lately?