I'm in a stage of life where I like a smooth path. I like to know what's coming, what I can expect around the curve, and that where I'm going is going to be prepared for me.
It doesn't always turn out that way. Sometimes I'm not sure where I'm going and so I have to just go on faith. Luckily our society is one that is prepared to provide almost anything. At a cost, of course, but if I need a place to stay in the middle of the night I can almost always find it.
With GPS and an Internet connection I can see the weather, know where it's raining and where it's not, know what to expect when I go somewhere, and go precisely to a place on the map without ever having to talk to anybody personally.
And then there's the past. We have a network of asphalt that runs coast to coast on our continent. Much of it is smooth and easily driven some of it is rough and still easily driven but bumpy. There are fewer and fewer dirt roads, but even those are pretty easily driven.
And then there are the hazards. The accidents were other people run into each other or have vehicle issues. The construction and the rocks.
Rocks are the unexpected bumps the either are pleased on the path or to the path or sometimes crawl onto the path. Sometimes they fall from above, like the son of an Indian chief that I tell a story about. Sometimes there placed by an enemy or by someone that is not as structured as I might be and they put it there so that they can remember and pick it up later but forget and it becomes an obstacle for me.
Sometimes the rock is big and unavoidable. Sometimes the rock is small and easily avoidable or even easily run over.
Sometimes the rock is alive. Turtle, possum, and armadillo, or a human being with things and doing things and tripping on things as they walk on the path that I'm trying to navigate.
I used to get mad at the rock. Irritated that it was in my way. I expected something laying there to know what I was trying to do and work with me in trying to accomplish it. Foolish, I know, but that was how I felt and still do often.
I had a rock drop into my path this past week. Someone trying to clean up their own mess ended up creating a mess for me when they were supposedly trying to help. Trying to give me a break. But giving in to that would've meant giving up something that I've done for six or seven years and really don't want to give it up to somebody.
Life is so interesting, especially as I get older. The way that I deal with things. Remembering how I dealt with them in the past and feeling shame and embarrassment and sometimes glorying in how easily I rolled through things before.
Now that I'm older I slow down a little more and enjoy the scenery a lot more and look around a lot more. Not necessarily at the scenery but at the people on the path with me and the people creating their own path and all the other things happening along the way.
Life is good, even with rocks on the path.
