The Road My Road

And Achish said, Whither have ye made a road to day?
1 Samuel 27:10

King
James Bible

My therapist told me to draw a road. That was the beginning and end of her instructions. Obviously the word road has enormous representational significance.

There is the road to ruin, the road to riches, the road to nowhere, Lonesome Roads (played by Andy Griffith), then there is Road Rage, the End of the Road, our marines hit the Dusty Road. We’ve got Gravel Roads, Paved Roads, Asphalt Roads, Cross Roads, Road Closures, Open Roads, and Road Blocks.

There are Roadsters, Road Races, Bad Roads, Wrong Roads, and Dead End Roads. Before GPS we used Road Maps (We unfold but never properly refold them).

Judy Garland sang about following the Yellow Brick Road. We follow Road Safety; or the Rules of the Road, there is a cartoon and actual bird named the Roadrunner. If we are too broke, or too scared to fly we go on Road Trips.

There are books, poems, songs, and movies about roads: Revolutionary Road, The Road Less Traveled, Road House (with Patrick Swayze RIP), the Long and Winding Road (thanks John and Paul), Tobacco Road (I like Steinbeck), On the Road Again (Thanks Willy), On the Road (remember Jack Kerouac?), there are Road Pictures (staring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope), Thunder Road (my actor cousin Jim Beaver was in that sitcom),and the History Channel series: Ice Road Truckers. We care about Road Signs, we make choices at the Fork in the Road, we are concerned about Road Conditions, we travel on Toll Roads, we Hit the Road, there is the Roadway, and let’s not forget Rail Roads.

We hate Uphill Roads, and we usually like Downhill Roads. In hundreds of thousands of counties there is at least one road called Rollercoaster Road. The road I like best is the Road to Recovery.

It is easy to see why the word and idea of Road has so much symbolic potential. Roads take off places and return us to the starting place. The journey of life can be symbolized by the Road. We may have a term Road to Nowhere, but really, in almost every case, roads go somewhere.

To examine the road of my life, I can look at it and see where I came from and extrapolate as to where I am going. I can hear a voice in my head saying, “Hang on texarooty. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

But still I hope it is going to be a Road to Recovery.