Walk Not Taken

A mild winter afternoon, a little more time than usual, a desire to walk somewhere new. Enter Oxon Road. I took it almost by accident, though, in an attempt to avoid the utility workers who were trimming trees on the other side of West Ox Road. So thorough are the strings that bind us to our routine that I would probably have just continued down to Bennett Road, as I usually do, had my usual way not been blocked, in which case Oxon Road would have continued to be a walk not taken. 

But I did cross the road and trot down Oxon — and my world was enlarged by it. First, West Ox is at its pinnacle there, so you can spot the faint gray line of the Blue Ridge from that vantage point. I wasn't expecting that — and seeing the mountains was a thrill.

Then there is a most fetching ivy-covered fence on the north side of the road. To walk beside it is to feel you are on the wrong side of a secret garden, that if you but knew which panel to push you could part that curtain of green and enter an enchanted place where flowers bloom yearlong.

I did not enter that garden, but I did imagine it. The wall of ivy gave it to me. That, and the walk not taken.