Daily Pilgrimage

Ducking out from the rain, side by side with another mother, we’re smiling because her son made it through the morning transition at preschool without wailing. I don’t know why we call it preschool, our kids are not even kids, they’re two and three. She asks how I’m doing. I say: My car is breaking down. I feel like I have about five minutes of childcare, so if my car doesn’t start in the parking lot, it’s really, really not fun at all.

On that note, ignoring the mechanic’s advice to tow, I putter up the hill. Three hours to write, two now if I’m lucky. One small deadline and I’m hell bent. Onto the highway, steady on slick pavement, merging with car consciousness, I know I’ll make it over the bridge without incident. I used to know that about jumping across creeks as a kid. Feels like commanding the elements, when finally, I’m simply in the best relationship possible with them. The laws of attraction are working for me now.

Working on allowing that kind of command for abundance rather than averting crisis.
And on that note, I pull into the mechanic’s driveway, note his shocked expression meeting my Obi-wan composure, and ask immediately, “Where’s your loaner.”

Proud of myself, at the coffee house, handled that well. Order half-caf Americano, boot up, unpack, settle in……no internet connection. F*&#@.

Little brown shoes falling out of my purse, sippy sideways on the bench beside me, one psychedelic pink unicorn propped on my laptop case, and I drop my head. Back and forth, slow sway, slow dance, staring at the mountain over yonder. Over there, out there, too far to reach by sundown.

Isn’t that how it is?

Pilgrimage. You hear the call. You set out. The destination seems so close, so attainable. From here to there, you can see the trail clearly and think, easy, I’ll just go this way.
But when you begin to walk, time stretches out, thins out, opens up, and in that space, all the living elements touch your body. And you realize then that you are not a static entity, not linear or logical. You are alive and in your aliveness you are fluid and in real motion, no edges to your breathing really, no boundary in your intention.

It’s all by and through relationship with EVERYTHING else that we make it anywhere. By grace and grace alone we go.

Time to head back across the river, transported by something I didn’t start out in earlier. But I know how to find the wheel, how to sit in that seat and look ahead, and I will navigate with the excitement of unknowns. That doesn’t piss me off nearly as much as my own small attitude…that quicksand of mud that almost had my feet. Merging into traffic, I'm learning a thing or two.