Shift, Shift, Shift... Moving Forward

A new day… and what a beautiful day it is!  Blue sky.  Coffee on the deck.  Words of connection and encouragement waiting in the inbox… a fine way to start!

Duane crawled out of bed once the coffee was ready and after a cup of Joe and some grunts he was human again… and put me to work.  We loaded some stuff in the motorhome… and then the mishaps started!

I successfully backed the Jeep into a tight space and hitched it to the trailer and navigated the rig out of said tight space and parked it along side the house.  Then we began to load “Plain Jane” on the trailer.  I was walking the bike up, it was in gear and as I got to the top of the ramp I clutched in and got on the trailer to resume the journey… I let out the clutch and the rear tire spit the ramp out and the bike dropped on the trailer with the rear tire hanging off the back of the trailer… missing my foot (safely ensconced in my Brikenstocks) by mere centimeters!!!

With a bit of grunting (once we remembered to take the bike out of gear) we got it on the trailer… and as Duane was strapping it down, he told me to sit on it.  I did – and promptly burnt my calf on the header from the rear cylinder…  it’s a HOG brand… the kind you get when you go on a motorcycle wearing shorts… duh!!

With the bike loaded, some Polysporin on my new body art we were off… to the sound of the alarm on the bike waking the neighbours and a light show for added measure!!  We tried everything… putting the alarm fob on the dash… no joy… putting it in the back of the jeep… no joy… finally we had to bungee cord the alarm fob to the motorcycle just so I could move down the highway without attracting the OPP!

Driving the Jeep was a real joy.  It’s a standard and there is something about finding the right gear for the right moment of the journey that appeals to me at such a deep level:

• Attend to the lay of the land and traffic patterns
• Attend to the RPMs of the vehicle
• Know what gear you are presently in
• Foot on gas pedal
• Foot on clutch
• Hand on steering wheel
• Hand on gear stick

And shift…  shift… shift… and life moves ever forward with an almost magical quality.

Now... off to mow some grass... and ponder life at this moment.

Well so much for mowing grass.  I sat on the mower… did manage to get it started but could not figure out how to engage the mower deck… Joe came along and in the interest of his Toro mower sent me off with Duane and Frank to get firewood…  probably just as well – given my luck with machines today I might have lost a toe on the leg that did not get burnt!

The firewood (slabs) were located at a sawmill on Mennonite farm adjacent to Frank’s property as we approached the slab pile we came alongside four Mennonite children in a little buggy pulled by a pony… they were heading to town.  Such a simple life with simple pleasures.

Two trailer loads of slabs were quickly loaded and we set off back to Joe’s place… by a different route… Duane didn’t know where he was…  “Damn you Frank where are you taking us…”  I quickly figured it out and said to Duane – “Never travel the same road twice if you can help it.”  He nodded.

A strange habit of mine.  Daily when I travelled to Springhill, if I took the highway in the morning I’d take the two lane (old #2) in the evening and vice versa…   Maybe it was something about seeing more or being open to a larger space in the world… yes, choose one road and you miss what may be on the other one – but, every choice has consequence – the question is, can you live with the consequence?

I’ve made some difficult choices in my life.  Some would argue that they were “good” and “bad”

Choosing to wear my
Birkenstocks

choices.  I beg to differ.  The value comes in the consequence – not the choice.  Some of those choices may have been unhealthy (to start smoking when I was 17) and healthy, (to quit smoking when Justin was born) … but each choice is made with the information we have at the time – and we can always make a different choice… to choose is one of the privileges of being human…

And yes, again, there are consequences to the choices we make. Can I live with the consequences of a choice that radically alters a choice made many years ago?  Yes… and I will always seek to make choices in that process that are respectful to the needs of those involved – including my family and others who are part of my circle of care.

Jean-Paul Sarte a philosopher I studied while doing my undergraduate degree says that to choose not to choose is a choice… and, even when faced with inevitable circumstances, or even circumstances beyond our control, we still choose how we are in those circumstances.

I choose life…  to turn toward the light… to pause and ponder the wonder of this moment…

I choose to be happy… to embrace each moment of every day and build wide and varied relationships with people along the way…

I choose love… to accept others as they are and offer myself as I am…

I close with some thoughtful words from C.S. Lewis

Everytime you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before…

... on the Sabbath Road...