Ladybird

There was nothing at stake. Not a thing was hanging on the decision I took on that hot day by the roadside in France. So I enlisted the help of a ladybird as I asked the question, ‘which way from here?’ I put the insect on the map, and waited. I was somewhere north of Provence, in the Rhone valley.

It’s not important what happened next. (The ladybird walked south, and I followed.)

But what strikes me about the incident now as I think back on it, over 50 years later, is this: never, in all the years since, have I found myself in a similar place where I had nothing to lose. The ideal crossroads in life, where no choice would be wrong, no road the wrong road. It felt so free, so exciting, to stand there and be equally open to north, south, east and west.

Ever since it has seemed as if there was good reason NOT to reach for the ladybird, because the stakes were too high. Nothing ever mattered as little again.

Maybe there will come another moment, untroubled by thoughts of consequence and responsibilities. Maybe that is what Leonard Cohen found on Mt. Baldy, or Thomas Merton in Gethsemane. What Eliot called ‘a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything.’