We got our work done yesterday, as planned and on schedule.
Now it’s time to go outside and play.
Unfortunately, it is going to be a wee bit too humid and stormy to have the Jeep top down. No matter, ‘ole Miles is just as fun to drive closed up and cooled inside.
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It’s important for me to take myself out when I’ve an hour or two free.
For a couple of reasons.
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First off, I thoroughly enjoy driving.
Add to the hundreds of day trips, I’ve also done major road trips around America. As high up as Minnesota, and as far as Houston. I went up to Quebec. Yep, I experienced the Border Guards. No BS there. And multiple times have I circled around England and Ireland.
I once took 28 days zigzagging through Italy, Monaco, Switzerland and France.
And I own the imaginary awesomeness badge for driving the entire north to south length of the south island of New Zealand.
Yeah, try saying THAT when you’ve knocked back a few.
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Second, it’s nice to take my glasses off.
Ugh, I do not like wearing glasses, but am useless without them. So much so I have extra pairs in my car, in my laptop bag, in my suitcase. Right now there’s three pairs inexplicably piling up in the mud room.
But out on the open road I am spec-free. And it’s like a burden has been lifted off my face.
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But mostly I drive because I like collecting stories.
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I’m not talking about obvious stuff or the dramatic stuff. Those do not interest me.
No, I’m talking about the every day stuff.
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A long while back Alanis Morrisette was on Stern, and Howard asked where her songs came from, what part of her life.
And Alanis answered with this fabulous and very Canadian comment when she said: Oh, it doesn’t take much, I can be inspired by an orange.
And that speaks to exactly how I operate.
That’s not to say that I don’t get bogged down by the cruelty and oppression that we deliberately inflict on each other on a global scale.
I do.
But, for sure, it’s noticing the parts that make up this Life that refreshes this soul.
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It can be whatever. Raindrops. A silver lake. A river swirl. Going through a car wash.
I’m water sign, what can I do?
It can be a cloud, or an old church, or a group of people, or a person, or watching animals on a farm.
Even the frozen veggie section of a grocery store is a marvel. You know, as you walk down the vacant aisle and the inside lights turn on one by one as you pass by.
It’s like magic in that lane. I don’t know about you, but no one turns on the lights for me like my local Food Lion.
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I also think it is just so wild that had I not turned left at that exact time and place, I would have never seen dot dot dot.
And it doesn’t matter what I encounter … because I, along with it or them or whomever, now have a shared experience.
And by that, I have a story I can go to whenever I want, or share out if it tells well.
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I do not know, and absolutely believe it is none of my business, how it works for anyone else.
But this is how it works for me. This is how I like being me in this World.
It really comes down to embracing my inner bird, and my mantra.
Read. Laugh. Explore.
Happy Sunday.