Common Miracles, Week 21: My little blue dot

“Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior’s world.” 

–Pema Chodron

am aware (have been for a long time, actually) of my directionally challenged nature. If I don't pay close attention, I can end up on the opposite side of a city (Calgary, Alberta comes to mind), come up out of a subway and find myself in the Bronx instead of uptown NYC; I have frequently turned left when it was pretty obvious I should have turned right, and frustrated many a traveling companion. It can take me multiple times of driving (myself, not just being a traveling companion, that takes even longer) to a new, complicated destination, before I've got it down.

I was reminded of this just yesterday when navigating my way out of Seattle, and, finding myself on the flip side of I-5 than I intended, I pulled out the handy GPS on my iPhone. It was actually pretty hilarious how many times I rejiggered the "current location" to accommodate where I had ended up, as opposed to where I was supposed to be. It almost never failed that when the line said "go there" my little blue dot was going the opposite way. (The beauty of a 15-year-old traveling companion with his face in an iPad is that the frustration levels stay pretty low. Bonus.)

Why am I confessing this? Because it struck me that, as with road trips, so is life. How many times do I have to adjust, rejigger, adjust again and sometimes I've even had to turn around? It happens. BUT. At least I'm doing it. Moving. Changing direction as needed. There's nothing noble about picking a course and staying it, even when you know for sure your little blue dot is way lost. Yet, that happens all the time, doesn't it? Sadly, yes.

Before you think that I was wandering the hills of Seattle for hours, this whole thing was about 7 minutes long, before I got myself headed the right direction; I'm not sure Seth even noticed! But it was funny enough to me that I thought about it on the way home, reflecting how grateful I am for GPS technology (how much longer would it have taken me if I didn't have the blue dot feedback?). And I also thought about road maps--digital and otherwise--and decided that actually having a road map is a heck of a lot better than not having one!

(This quote applies to life, not actual driving road trips!)

When I think about where my blue dot is most days, it brings me a lot of joy.

The Common Miracles project started here. I really enjoy the prompt it provides me each week to think a little differently about things I might otherwise take for granted.