Meander

It was in Geography class that I first encountered the word meander. I was the only senior in our small school in Kokstad,  that opted to study geography in higher grade. I was planning to go to university, and thus excellent grades were essential.

I was also the only girl in school who did not enroll in home economics class. I meandered away from the norm, and soon found myself like an oxbow lake: part of the pattern, but isolated from the mainstream.

This morning this memory came flooding back in this very first reaction to daily prompts.

What I found interesting was that,  over time, a meandering river will find a curve which flows away from the mainstream, resulting in an oxbow lake.  A stretch of water separated from the rest. To one side.

Many of us are like an oxbow lake. We start in the mainstream, go with the flow, but soon, you find a path less traveled to the side, and you drift further and further away from what everyone else is doing.

You get out of the rat race, you become a little more non-conformist every day, and one good day, you occupy your own space, to one side, peacefully getting on with what fulfills you and makes sense. Separate from a life of hustle and bustle and fitting in. Blooming exactly where you are supposed to.

My meandering away from the norm with geography instead of home economics caused a lot of mirth at our annual prize-giving ceremony. I was called to the stage, and expecting a wonderful travel guide or atlas, I was handed a recipe book! Much to the delight of my geography teacher and his wife,

I now make a great pizza, and can report that many people have eaten at my table and lived to tell the tale.