The path not taken

"Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back."

Robert Frost

Not a very good illustrative photograph I know. But it is me, on a path, and there is another very bright path (actually along the beach of beautiful Lake Wanaka in New Zealand), and also the suggestion of one middle front and one behind me on the left. Anyway it's the nearest I could find of me at a parting of the ways.

I walked back from Eltham this morning. It's a lovely day and I really should be outside, but I have done the required exercise for the day. As I walk I think. About life (a bit), the universe (not much - too frightening and depressing) and everything (lots). Everything in my context means the daily trivia and the little bits of interesting stuff you see and hear. Today it was more about life.

Now and then I try to think of less stressful ways of holidaying in France and Italy, for I fear we shall not go there again, and I would very much like to. And this led me today to thinking of setting up a business (or my daughter-in-law who, I suspect, is thinking about setting up some kind of internet business), running a 'slow' holiday based somewhere like the lovely house we stayed at in Narbonne - with guides and visits and cooks, etc. The kind of holiday we have but run by somebody else and offered to the public. But I'm too old and this will never happen, but it did lead me to thinking about the path I didn't take, so long ago, into hotel management, and then about life's choices in general.

I suppose throughout my life my passions have been reading, cooking and, above all, my family. My family goes without saying really, although that family would have been different, or maybe not existed at all, if I had taken my other path way back then. The other passions would have remained though.

I have had several careers - secretary, teacher, mother, wife, executive wife, librarian, librarian/manager, with a bit of film society volunteering on the side. And indeed, what really brought this moment of introspection on was the fact that I have been invited to a gathering this evening in the city for people associated with CAVAL - the last organisation I worked for - which is celebrating 40 years of existence. It will be nice to catch up, however briefly. I enjoyed working there - running a foreign language and specialist cataloguing service on a commercial basis, in support of the university libraries of Victoria. The business grew to a size that really was just beyond my capabilities and so I decided to retire. I was lucky I had a husband who was still able and willing to support me.

But back to the path not taken. My hotel/catering career. At the end of one's school life one has to make decisions about what to do. I was an average student really but thought about going to university - mostly to study French was the aim - although I was also increasingly interested in food and all the associated stuff around it. And so I applied to two universities (I couldn't apply to more because I did not have O-level Latin), but also to Battersea Technical College for a 4 year course in hotel management. It was then virtually the top of the tree for such things I think. And I got into one university (Keele) and also Battersea. Perhaps influenced by my mother who suggested that university offered more options and there weren't many careers for women in hotels, I decided for university, but I often wonder whether it was the right choice. I suspect it also shows how incapable I am of actually making definite choices - I just go with the flow or what other, stronger personalities, suggest.

Of course I met my husband at university, and made lifelong friends, and in some ways they were the best years of my life, however miserable I might have been at times. It was the only time in my life, for example, that I had a room of my own. I dithered though, at the end of it all, as to what to do with my newly minted degree. I dithered through two careers - secretary and teacher, eventually deciding that neither were for me. Boring for the first, and stressful and, in my own opinion anyway, I was not very good at the second - not good enough anyway. So it was back to my first passion of reading and books and libraries. (I am ignoring the ever present and ongoing passion for my family here.) And as long as I was just cataloguing I was happy. It might sound boring but it's quite intellectually challenging and satisfying. Managing others was a step too far though. Much too stressful when you have others' livelihoods in your hands.

So had "I kept the first for another day" - though in my case it was the second - something food related. Well yes and no. In a career sense that other day never eventuated because I'm not brave enough. When we returned from Adelaide and initially I could not find a job, I thought of setting up some kind of home catering business - I bought books on the subject. And later I thought of running a B&B in the Gatehouse - I went on a one day course on the subject. And now I find myself thinking about organising foodie/cultural homestays in France! But yes, "way leads on to way", (I was offered a job in a library), and it's something I have never fully explored.

Do I regret it? Sometimes a very little. But not really. My life would have been completely different. Unimaginable in fact. Maybe I would have had another husband, other children. Maybe not. Maybe I would have made lots of money, maybe I would have made none. It's pointless to even think about it really. That way leads to disillusion and dissatisfaction. Whereas I do know that my life has been very lucky and filled with opportunity. If I have not grasped those opportunities then I have no-one to blame but myself.

And yes, "I doubted if I should ever come back" as I chose university over hotel management, and superficially I have not. Yet - I have cooked for family and friends with great satisfaction, I have made various cook books for my children and here I am with a blog on food - along with the thousands and thousands of others out there. So maybe I did keep the first for another day. Maybe it was always there anyway.

Sorry - this is all a bit narcissistic. I just want to convey I think, that any choice can lead to good things if you have the right attitude, and that you can always find your way back to the first on another day even if not in the way you first intended.