Travel takes us across rite-of-passage thresholds and to the jagged edge of life. In Poetry As Survival, Gregory Orr wrote, "It is on a threshold, at the edge, where we are most able to alter our understanding of the world, and of our own lives in it."Walking down a forest path on Washington State's Whidbey Island, I glanced up and saw this maple leaf pierced by a thin twig, barely moving with the misty breeze. The path was thickly strewn with alder leaves, evergreen needles, and small branches coated with moss: evidence of a windstorm two nights before. The silence was palpable and calming.
