Sketchbook Journey – 8

Which route would you choose?

Sketch from 4.9.2020. I wasn’t consciously thinking when I sketched this and feel like it is a mirror of my life’s journey. I’m not the kind of character to follow the straight path I’m one of those people that enjoys a more convoluted path. I’m like that in my daily life too, I have a passionate desire to discover new things and live new experiences. It can be exhausting at times but it’s always an adventure!

I love walking and have walked a lot more than I normally would during this lockdown. My quest for discovering new places has been whole heartedly rewarded. I’m lucky to live in a beautiful part of the UK – Tunbridge Wells. A place surrounded by parks and countryside. My friend and a fellow artist Mandy often accompanies me on these walks. I call them the ‘magical mystery tours’ because although we have a decided starting and finishing point we never quite know where we’ll end up or what we’ll find -I have a terrible habit of saying ‘Ohhh what’s down there?’ or ‘Ohhh I haven’t been this way before, shall we see where it leads?’ – no walk is ever the same. I think this poem by Robert Frost sums up our walks perfectly.

The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost 1916
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear:
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I...
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

Decisions decisions… Photo: Julia Stockwell-Hamid

I realise the poem is one of slight regret but I prefer not to dwell on that because that’s just life and life can be hard sometimes. There’s so many choices, we don’t always know if we have made the right choice. I just find the meandering journey more interesting that’s all.

Would you agree?

Materials used: Lamy pen; Black Ink; Seawhite of Brighton Sketch Book

If you would like to see my work you can find it on my website jshdesigns.uk or instagram

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