Unexpected Turns

It's a cliché, but undeniably true: life is full of unexpected turns, both good and bad. And if there's anything I've learned to embrace in life, it's another cliché: expect the unexpected (you'll rarely be disappointed)!

This is particularly true in parenting, where you never know when your 5-yr-old might whip off his shirt and start belly dancing to "Do You Know the Muffin Man?" in the middle of a dinner party. Or the teenager actually does take out the trash without being reminded. Or the 8-yr-old uses some unfortunate "mature" language. In church. In front of the Bishop. Oh well.

Last month when I took Chloé to upstate New York, we were both feeling glum over the dilapidated industrial feel of her new college town. The waiter at our surprisingly good restaurant, who turned out to be an adjunct professor of Visual Arts at Syracuse University, told us we had to go see Green Lakes, a few miles east of the city. The lakes, transformed to a startling shade of aqua by the calcium carbonate in their waters, were breathtakingly beautiful and utterly unexpected. We were transported by the morning song of a Northern Oriole, and our outlook brightened considerably. It was a good turn.

The turn I took on my ankle a couple of days ago was not so good, although it must have been amusing to see me sprawled out in the handicapped parking space where I fell because I missed the dip in the sidewalk intended as a wheelchair ramp. I'm a motley mass of sprains, scrapes, and bruises, but nothing's broken, and I'm reminded how good I've got it just to get through most of my days without disaster.

There are days when I spend too much energy spinning my wheels (or rather, grinding my gears) in an effort to follow a friend's advice: "One day at a time, with a plan for tomorrow." Tomorrow's coming anyway, plan or not, and sometimes I just want to know my seatbelt's working so I don't fly out when we go around the curve. Occasionally, it's top-down-exceeding-the-speed-limit and I don't worry about what's coming around the bend. The only thing you can be sure of is, whatever's headed this way, it will probably be unexpected...