Footprints

Over the years a person can walk countless miles leaving behind millions of footprints. Footprints that have grown over the years from a baby, to an adolescent, to a teenager and then to an adult. Before there were bikes, cars, horses, one's own feet provided the transportation to get where he or she wanted to go and left footprints behind. It's those footprints which leave lasting impressions, impressions that have been to places and met many people. Each footprint one has made over the years tells a story of how one lived his or her life. A life that has probably been filled with adventure, excitement, and love. Before there were bikes, cars, horses, etc. one's own feet provided the transportation to get where he or she wanted to go and left footprints behind.

One of my favorite poets, E.E. Cummings, says in his poem, "Somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond" in which he writes:

somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which I cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be close to me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower
imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour or its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

In the immortal words of the Proclaimers from the movie Benny and Joon, would a person walk 500 miles to be with the person that you truly care about?" In other words, would you be willing to walk so many miles or travel great distances, to an unknown place to be with the man or woman you want to spend the rest of your life with? For many the answer is yes, some no, for others they can't decide. Who knows what a person is capable of when love is involved, for a person can oftentimes not be thinking clearly and is not in the right mindset. Or has he or she finally reached a point where the answers are clear as the writing on the wall so to speak.

In any case, everybody has traveled to many places over the years and left behind many footprints. Footprints that have traveled the world whether it be by land, by sea, or by air. The miles logged on one's own feet can be astounding when one thinks about it. It's unfathomable how many miles one has walked since the time we are born till we reach our golden ages. The footprints left behind during those years would not be able to be numbered. As kids we spend our whole lives walking from point A to point B and leaving behind so many lasting impressions. It's those impressions that show growth as each of us turn from adolescents into mature well rounded adults.

It's been said that life can be compared to a beach. If you think about it, we spend our whole lives searching for that perfect wave and sometimes we may never find it. However when one does arrive, hopefully that person will hold on to it and never let go. In any case, if one looks atop a beach one can see the many footprints left behind by people who we don't even know. The impressions that they have left with their footprints have their own stories to tell. In the end, it's not the footprints left behind that matters, it's the footprints that one will leave in the future that truly matters.