One Balanced Life

So the plan is…

I have traveled enough cross-country, with young children, to know that the end to that sentence is best left alone. There are infinite possibilities. What I don’t always know is it applies to me as well. My plan, in keeping with the month, was to focus on snapping a picture everyday of the simple joys along the way, which I started out doing. There was a picture of Ryder chasing seagulls on the Indiana dunes and a rainbow above Niagara Falls…but that is where those pictures will remain…in my memory.

After leaving Niagara Falls, my girlfriend turned to me and said I bet you have some great pictures. I looked at her and said “we have my camera, right?” After three days in the van, I turned and frantically scanned the tornado behind us and didn’t see it. I had handed it to her while I ran to get the car. In a state of hysteria, I whipped a highly illegal u-turn on the interstate and headed back. I am not a stuff person but it is one of the four possessions I care about (the others being my ipod, docking station, and computer). She calmly said, “It will be there I think I set it down on a bench.” I was not that calm and began having a complete meltdown – screaming at the kids to be quiet and crying. She started dialing the police and lost and found. As we pulled up she jumped out and started searching, while I hyperventilated and started bargaining with the universe.

I saw her running to and fro and as she came back to the car empty handed and clearly now upset in a panic. I felt so bad and heard a little voice inside my head said, “It is just stuff Sarina – let it go.” She climbed in the car, started crying, and apologizing repeatedly. I grabbed her hand and said, “Honey, stop. Let it go - the flash was broken anyway. It ain’t nothin but a thing. There is some gift in this.” She looked at me like I was insane and then we started laughing.

I turned to glance at the three kids. Oops, they were clearly shell-shocked and traumatized by the drama they had just witnessed. I explained all was okay, everyone was fine and we actually didn’t need the camera to remember and that every time we were happy or saw something we liked we would snap a pretend picture…and we would always have in our memory (this little pep talk might have been a bit for me).

As I stare out at the valley, savoring a cup of coffee and the stillness of an early Vermont morning, I snap a picture. That is the gift. To be here now. There is no distraction of a camera (or anything else for that matter). Just the moment.

So that is the new plan…the let go of the plan.