Two roads diverged in a wood and I -- I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.

~Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.
~ George Moore, The Brook Kerith

Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
~  Nathaniel Hawthorne

I don't know what it is, but I really am drawn to the illusion of trees and branches and other items that look like hands reaching out of the ground (in this case, as if waiting, always waiting, on guard to prevent something important from leaving land and entering the water). These rare Oregon days, like today, make you forget that the water is ice cold, that yesterday we were wearing sweatshirts and heavy socks, that the sky was ever gray. I'm grateful for days like today, they remind me of the good things about being here when my heart and mind spend most of their time somewhere else entirely.

 I am restless. I am athirst for far-away things.
My soul goes out in a longing to touch the skirt of the dim distance.
O Great Beyond, O the keen call of thy flute!
I forget, I ever forget, that I have no wings to fly, that I am bound in this spot evermore.

I am eager and wakeful, I am a stranger in a strange land.
Thy breath comes to me whispering an impossible hope.
Thy tongue is known to my heart as its very own.
O Far-to-seek, O the keen call of thy flute!
I forget, I ever forget, that I know not the way, that I have not the winged horse.

I am listless, I am a wanderer in my heart.
In the sunny haze of the languid hours, what vast vision of thine takes shape in the blue of the sky!
O Farthest end, O the keen call of thy flute!
I forget, I ever forget, that the gates are shut everywhere in the house where I dwell alone!

~ Rabindranath Tagore, The Gardener