for some reason that quote has been jumping out at me lately. i was thinking of it and of the woman it reminds me of just the other day, and then last night i picked up my homework for my yoga immersion next weekend and there was that quote again.
maybe it's because i've had a hard time getting up and going lately. hard to settle into a routine of accomplishing much of anything when sabine is so off routine some days. maybe it's just a gentle reminder from my psyche to only go one step at a time. perhaps, parenthood is just that... a journey of a thousand miles taken only one step at a time.
when i think of that quote i am always reminded of an amazing story out of Southwest Virginia, further southwest than where i grew up... out to blacksburg where the virginia tech campus is now. the story is of Mary Draper Ingalls who was living there with her husband in one of the first white settlements so far west. in 1755 the Shawnee indians raided the settlements because these people were living on their hunting grounds. Mary was kidnapped along with her sister-in-law, and two children (there is some debate that she might have been pregnant too). they were taken up the New river which runs south to north all the way to the Ohio River and from there she was separated from her children and sister-in-law and taken way up into Ohio to make salt for the Indians. it might not be such a remarkable story, or might not have ever really been heard or told... except that she WALKED BACK.
Mary literally walked from Ohio to Virginia with no map. she simply memorized the way, counted all the streams and tributaries and followed the rivers back. when she came to a tributary that was too wide to cross she walked up the tributary until she found a crossing point, she couldn't even swim. the walk took about 4 to 6 weeks in the fall and early winter of that year and though she was only about 400 miles from home, she probably walked 800 or so because of all the backtracking up tributaries. luckily she wasn't alone. she brought another captive, an old Dutch woman, with her who turned on her and tried to cannibalize her by the end because both were starving. finally, after climbing the sheer cliffs of the New River Gorge, she was rescued by former neighbors and returned to her husband. she was 23 at the time. and from there she pretty much picked up her life and kept on living. just amazing to me. to read an online account of her story you can click here. there is also a book about Mary called Follow the River by James Alexander Thom.
anyway. i'm just inspired. or in awe i think. that a woman at that time would go that distance and simply walk into freedom or death whichever came first. so now i just try to do the same. one step at a time. one day at a time. one yoga practice, or nap, or diaper change, or meditation session at a time. remembering life may feel forever the same, but it is always changing. this baby time is fleeting and we'll be moving her to off college soon enough : ( in the meantime we'll go a thousand miles one step at a time.
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