The first step of the day leaves the largest footprint.
From The Anticipation of Loss, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
Snow came in the night, four inches of it, and by seven the Dolan boy had been out to the mailbox and back. His prints going out were deep and clean; coming back he had stepped in his own holes, so the path read as one set of tracks going nowhere. I sat on the gutter and watched the whole street walk that path all morning, the mailman, the woman with the terrier, a man I have never seen before. Nobody broke new snow. For years I thought a trail was made by everyone who used it, and I think now the first step of the day leaves the largest footprint, and the rest are guests in it. What I cannot work out is whether the boy knew, or whether he was only cold and wanted to get back inside.
He reads what you tell him and writes a page of his journal back, with a few of these chosen for you. It costs nothing and asks for nothing.
Have it on something
More like it
- A life with endless sunshine would be a life without starry nights.
- Everything is new, but few things are seen anew.
- Looking way ahead is not very farsighted.
- It is hard to be in two places at once and harder to be in one.
- Nothing you do matters if you’re not there when it happens.
- With every step you take, you teach yourself how to walk in the world.