Roots en Route

Root.
NOUN

Attached to the ground or to support, typically underground, conveying nourishment to the rest of the plant.

VERB
To be established deeply and firmly.

What does it mean to be rooted? To have roots? When you think of how you have rooted yourself in life – what do you see or immediately think of?

Is it the phrase ‘settle down’?

Many of us see being rooted or putting down roots as setting ourselves in a place where we live and call home. Somewhere we have settled and become established. We have ‘rooted’.

In recent years I have been mulling over the phrase, ‘to put down roots’. Increasingly more aware that I was unsure I had any! I haven’t felt at home in a place since I was little, and as I grew older friends and family became more spread out than ever before, and that feeling of not having been rooted grew.

I have always classed myself as an independent woman. I have always liked doing things on my own, and this has sometimes meant learning the hard way. This characteristic of my own independence got me thinking that even that word implies ‘to stand alone’. Did that mean my characteristics and some personality traits had been stopping me from ‘rooting’?

As the massive millennial over-thinker that I am, I thought about it some more. However, I started to wonder; what if ‘to root’ wasn’t having a place.

What if you were the root. Established deeply and firmly.

Diving deep into this analogy I feel it should be stated that obviously as a small human I needed someone else to anchor, support and help me grow - in come parents – those wonderous beings again. Providing me the support and nourishment I needed until I could anchor myself.

I have been ‘rooting’ me for over thirty years. From the feral child to awkward teenager, lonely young adult, combustible twenty something, into the independent, strong minded, mistake making, loving, young (I refuse to remove young) woman of today. I know who I am. I am me. I also know I change constantly, but that at the root of me is always the same.

When I thought of it in this way I suddenly felt a huge surge of certainty that this is what ‘to have roots’ meant for me. I feel a connection to the community I inhabit, that I build. I also feel connected to the world and landscape around me. To root so that I can travel many routes, and always find home.

Routes.

NOUN
A way or course taken to get from a starting point to a destination

Two roads diverge in a yellow wood,
and sorry I couldn’t take both
As a lone traveller, long I stood, and looked down one as far as I could
Then took the other.

Robert Frost.

I love this poem. What it can mean to different people. What it means to me.

We are constantly faced with choices from the mundane; what’s for dinner, what to wear, how to do my hair (normally I don’t - simple). To the bigger ones such as where we live, who we spend our life with and how we live our life. We make thousands of choices every day. We cannot live all routes presented to us we have to make decisions. So they better be good ones.

How many of our choices have impacted the who, where and why we live today? I’m pretty certain all of them. How many of us have made choices that we didn’t realise would set us on a path or course that we never even wanted? Who didn’t even look down the other paths because they were too scared about becoming lost, or didn’t even know they were there? Have had their paths diverted, blocked or changed by unexpected circumstances?
I did the ‘all eggs in one basket’ once. I wanted to be a professional violinist and so did everything I could to get there and along the way all the eggs smashed. Injury after injury meant that my route had a concrete barrier blocking it, and I no longer knew what to do. The destination had been irrevocably cancelled. I was presented suddenly with a world of choices, which up until that point I had ignored!

The idea of a destination, and culmination of the journey is now such a strange one for me.
Having spiralled my way into a plethora of choices I carried on down the ‘next best thing’ route and became a teacher. I trained more, developed new skills and worked my way through the teacher ranks. I loved it to start, but after a few years being a teacher, for me, felt like a treadmill that someone thought would be hilarious to turn up to nearly max speed, raise the gradient and keep throwing things at me whilst I attempted to clamber up it whilst remaining upright.

As you can imagine, I fell off the treadmill. Spectacularly, and with flair. Dusted myself off and walked the other way nursing my self-esteem and bruises.

I see so many people striving for the next best thing, the next big thing, the next, the next, the next, never fully arriving. It just seems like a never-ending hamster wheel of doom, where all you really achieve is low self-esteem and tired legs.
This got me thinking; What if our route didn’t focus on an outcome or product?

What if it was actually aiming for the feeling of contentment.

I have explored as many routes as I can over the last 10 years, finding out what makes me tick and what doesn’t. What excites me and bores me, makes me feel good or awful, who, where and how I like to spend my life. My routes are now always aiming towards feelings. Excitement, free, wild, fun, adventurous, happy, scared, brave…they all crop up!

Roots in Routes for me is more of a lifestyle and future. To feel I can go in any direction, but always find my way home.

What is the route you are wanting to travel? Where is your destination? What does Roots in Routes mean to you? I’d love to know.

Speak soon,
Love G x

#RootsinRoutes #adventureyourway