The poet William Wordsworth was walking in a desolate area in Scotland when he encountered another walker (unexpectedly a well-dressed woman) who asked, by way of greeting, “What you are stepping westward?”
“What you are stepping westward?”
‘Twould be a wildest destiny,
If we, who thus together roam
In a strange Land, and far from home,
Were in this place the guests of Chance.
Yet who would stop, or fear to advance,
Though home or shelter he had none,
With such a Sky to lead him on?
The dewy ground was dark and cold:
Behind, all gloomy to behold;
And stepping westward seemed to be
A kind of heavenly destiny.
I liked the greeting; ’twas a sound
Of something without place or bound;
Of traveling through the world that lay
Before me in my endless way.
When I was 60 years old, my ‘stepping westward’ began. Not by choice, but as a guest of Chance.
Some would say it was a hero’s journey, with Chance forcing me out the door of my known world, and into an unexpected new life.
Others might view it as the logical result of a lifetime’s fascination with the West combined with a bad case of unfulfilled wunderlust.
I will never know exactly why.
All I can say for sure is that despite my fears, my life had suddenly turned all gloomy to behold. It made traveling far from home truly a kind of welcome and heavenly destiny.
I thank whatever it was that brought me here.