as of late, i've been thinking a lot about things that i want to do--but now all of the sudden i'm supposed to make plans for a social/volunteer group. work requires me to be organized, a tad anal, and make sure that i deliver. i have to consider all avenues, options, alternatives--my work life is complicated. it requires thought, planning, expectations. i like it. planning for my boys has been complicated on and off. i'm pretty sure that any parent can say that. kids sometimes require all kinds of planning and sometimes we just take it as it comes. it's simple; it's complicated. it requires organization, but it can still lead to complete kaos. i'm not a big fan of kaos, and being able to shrug it off isn't always easy either. it's been part of the learning curve of raising children--particularly as they have become teenagers. who knew that kaos is a word that depicts teenagers with their angst, their unpredictability, their predicatability, their growth, their storms and even the calm that follows? no word describes teenagers (and their bedrooms) better than kaos. so it probably shouldn't be shocking that i really like the rest of my life to be "take it as it comes". it's just easier, and often more fun, to not pick or choose what i want to do. just go with the flow. planning for others? really, me? it's not that i don't know how--it's that i like the ebb and flow, the surge of energy and the easement in contrast. the responsibility gives me great pause.
honestly, when it's just me, i'll take off here or there. my photos are full of pictures of random places that i just pick out and go to. sometimes i get to see some amazing things as i randomly wander, picking places for their cool names or just because that road looks cooler to the right than the left. i have fantastic stories (or maybe i'm just good at story telling)...regardless, not too many people can say that they just took off down the road one day, riding around the farms of kansas, with no particular goal, no real plan and no location selected on the map. the only requirement was to venture out and enjoy some fresh air. as i came up on a crossroads, in front of me, about a mile up the road, it turned into dirt, to the right was a railroad tracks, and to the left just open-ish road. i made the left and stopped. it was picturesque--not to mention the combine that was about a mile up the road in front of me--taking up the road from white line to white line. even though kansas doesn't have the huge ditches on either side of the road, well, there wasn't much room to get around the farmer as he was trucking down from one field to the next. so i just took a pause. there were a couple of cool looking barns off half a mile or so from two of the four corners. there was a neat little oil drill going on a third, and the fourth had a sea of beautiful yellow wild flowers--like an earth-made sunshine to comfort the acres. i upset the hell out of a red wing blackbird, who took an immediate interest in me who squaked at me like i cared. he finally went quiet, but insisted on sitting just slightly off to the right of me--making sure that i could see him in the corner of my eye--intent on sitting on that overhead wire until i went away. it was a beautiful day, with a light breeze, wild flowers and cattails bristling in the wind. for as perfect as that moment was, the quiet, soft moment with no thoughts other than an appreciation for the grandeur of mother earth, there was more. later, the pictures i posted gave friends a great laugh. in the relaxing moment, i had shot the pictures--of the combine in the distance, of the wild flowers, of the barns and the oil well...never noticing that the road's lines were painted crooked. in the perfection of mother earth, and the farmer that revels and survives because of her good graces, our imperfection shown through--in a crooked road. to me, this was a perfect day.
sharing those perfect days, well, is something that i've never considered really. i love those moments that we get to see the world in its beauty and grandeur--just as i love the foilabilities, the imperfections that make us human. it's a contridiction--an oxymoron. that which is perfect can be beautiful, but so can those things that are so imperfect. friends used to joke how much i used to ride. i'd take off into the smokies, riding my motorcycle, spend the day going to waterfalls or watering holes. oh right, did i leave out that this is about riding motorcycles? oh perhaps, but i like to think that has more to do with finding an appreciation for the beauty of the world around us, the gifts that we overlook on a daily basis, and the wonder of being able to take it all in. it's also equally wonderful to see how we, the human race, have impacted the world. it is not as ugly as some self-appointed nature lovers would think. don't get me wrong--we can add ugly too (but as always, for another blog). there's always a degree of too far this way, or too far that. but as the saying goes, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". if all we see is ugliness, then what does that say about the beholder?
perhaps this isn't really about the fear that i'm going to miss out on that beauty in the rigidity of plans...i mean some people have no imagination, no vision, and/or can suck the life blood out of anything. but what if they can enjoy a glimpse of what i see? i'm the eternal optimist--life, even when it's been less than blessed for me, has been, as a whole, a wonderful adventure. the ocean is not just a big blue body of water--it's a conglomeration of things to spark the senses, the imagination, the soul. it's the salty taste of the air, the rippling of the waves as they shift in and back out to the beautiful abyss, the sands that slip in between our toes, the seagulls attacking a clam that washed up on the shore, the whispers of the seagrass on the dunes as the atlantic winds shift.
on the other hand, i enjoy people just as much as i enjoy the world around me (ok, most people, but stay with me here anyway). it always amazes me how different God (mother nature, fate, whatever created us) makes us so different, so random, and yet, simply so perfect. we are all oxymorons--admittedly, some bigger than others. i know i'm full of contridictions myself. (i'm pretty sure when looking up the word "oxymoron" in a print dictionary my picture is boldly sitting within the body of the explanation.) but we all are to some degree. it varies. we vary. one of the most ridiculous sayings i know: "how can their children be so different? they come from the same house, the same parents..." hahaha. really? how? yes, i'm sure that we are a mix of our ancestors--grandparents, parents, maybe recessive genes that our uncle so-and-so got, etc. but we are never exactly like anyone else. we are just as amazing as the ocean, the mountains, the air. yet, we often forget how amazing we are--and therefore, often overlook how amazing others are.
all that being stated, i feel much relieved, and even a bit excited, at this new responsibility to "plan" road trips for a motley, wonderful, mish-mash of people that share my love of the road. i can still run off down the road without a crowd and enjoy the flight. but it'll be just as much fun spending time with people, seeing how they view the world, and expanding my horizons--perhaps expanding some of theirs too. one of my favorite sayings is "all we are is all we know". there is no better way to expand what we know than to see the world as another sees it, and when we can see the way others see the world, we know a little more than we did yesterday. all we are is limited by all we know. one of the greatest gifts that we have literally at our fingertips is just getting to know others and how they see the world. it expands what we know--how we view the world. yes, still the added responsibility does give me pause, but if it means that some people get to know others that they might not otherwise, if it means that someone gets to see the world with through someone else's looking glass, if it means that even one person expands their world, their view, their "know", then the pause is not great. it's a soft, whisper in the sound of the wind of the mind.
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