Crossroads
Compitalia
A Marathon of Blues Music to Accompany a Day of Hard Choices
About Crossroads
Crossroads is about making tough decisions. It’s a pause at the intersection of old and new, a chance to embrace the possibilities ahead. Inspired by the Roman Compitalia, a festival honoring regional gods (more on that below), we draw on traditions that remind us to seek guidance before moving forward. Hard choices, postponed resolutions, and the weight of the past year are all made lighter by trusted counselors. You might visit a church, call an old mentor, or simply journal about life’s big questions—whatever helps you wrestle with big decisions and find clarity. If New Year’s Day focused on resolutions, Crossroads focuses on the obstacles that keep those resolutions from succeeding. There’s no reason you have to listen to Delta blues all day, but in our experience, it can be helpful to remember that our baseline experience is actually pretty good. (And if it’s not, you’ll welcome the commiseration.)
Ways to observe
(A) Low effort
Put on some Robert Johnson—anything and everything. Before the day is done, make one tough decision you’ve been avoiding. Doesn’t have to be big, just genuine.
(B) Recommended
Return to one of your own crossroads. Visit a place where you made a meaningful decision: a job offer accepted, a relationship begun, a risk taken. Stand there for a minute. Remember who you were.
(C) High effort
Surrender to fate. Let a coin decide everything today—what you eat, where you go, which task you tackle first. Flip for every fork in the road, literal or figurative. Commit fully. Today, surrender is strength.
Inspiration
Bear with me: we’re at the crossroads of Crossroads. That’ll make sense shortly. I love the idea of regional gods, the Lares Compitales of the Romans. These minor divinities watching over neighborhoods and crossroads, minding the spaces between households. The Romans honored them with the festival of Compitalia, leaving bits of cake and wool dolls at shrines built where roads met, hoping for protection, guidance, or just a little extra favor when life got complicated.
Yuletide (12 Days of Christmas) That’s the easy version of crossroads, a place where paths converge, where neighbors meet, where something new might begin. But just as often, crossroads are places of tension and mystery. Liminal zones, prowled by witches, ghosts, and opportunists ready to take advantage of your indecision. Which brings us to hard crossroads. According to legend, Robert Johnson met the devil at a crossroads and traded his soul for a guitar style that would echo through generations. It’s a fine myth (so fine it has a monument in Clarksdale, Mississippi, where it supposedly happened). And it works, because the blues belongs at the crossroads. Blues music is about hard bargains and the kind of romantic betrayal that ruins your dog and your transmission. It’s mean, itchy, beautiful music. So here we are: the crossroads of crossroads. Roman or Delta. Cake or devil. Guidance or grit. The moods couldn’t be more different, but we practice piety the same way, by leaning into the mess of our lives with full clarity. Pick a lane. If your household god today is Robert Johnson, spend the day slow-dancing with your regrets. Otherwise, bake a cake and give thanks for the things you haven’t earned.
Adornments
Watch
The Matrix (1999)
Computer hacker Neo is offered a choice between two pills: one returns him to his familiar but false life, the other awakens him to an unsettling reality. His decision to swallow the “red pill” propels him into a new world and a fight for humanity’s freedom.
Casablanca (1942)
A cynical nightclub owner in WWII Morocco finds himself at a moral crossroads when confronted with an old flame and her fugitive husband. The foggy airport farewell has become iconic, encapsulating how a single fateful choice can alter the course of many lives.
Listen
Cross Road Blues by Robert Johnson
This haunting Delta blues classic captures the mythic aura of the crossroads. Johnson sings of a man stranded at a literal and spiritual intersection, pleading for mercy.
Hellhound on My Trail by Robert Johnson
Conjures the paranoia and pressure of being chased by unseen forces. Johnson’s keening voice and eerie phrasing paint a picture of dread, as if every step forward is shadowed by regret or consequence.
Read
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Set on a wintry alien planet where gender is fluid and politics are treacherous, this novel follows a human envoy tasked with forging peace through diplomacy and empathy.