.....detour

Yogis,
It’s Friday morning and I’m packing for a quick weekend trip to visit friends in Pennsylvania. The plan is to leave by noon because as you probably know, any later is asking for trouble on a Friday on Interstate 95. I check my phone for directions to see what it is looking like and notice that it has me veering off I95 north of Baltimore. Uh, oh.

We weren’t leaving for a couple of hours and assumed that whatever the obstacle was would surely be cleared up by then. Imagining a detour creates that small pit in my stomach since I know 95 and can almost drive it with my eyes closed at this point.

Noon comes. Car loaded. Phoebe nestled into her bed behind me. I pull up the gps again……..no change. Certainly, in the hour it takes us to get north of Baltimore all will be resolved. Off we go!

Smooth ride north and through the tunnel. Making good time. Coming out the other side, a highway sign flashes brightly ’95 North – all lanes closed at Delaware border.’ Shoot. My phone tells me to exit fifteen miles up on a road I have never traveled.

The remaining hour and a half of the ride winds us through countryside and as soon as I relax my mind’s irritation with this unplanned detour and loosen my grip on the steering wheel, things change. I begin seeing cleared open fields and rolling hills. The way the sun lights the tree tops. Old bridges and quaint small towns. I find myself starting to like this new route.

Instead of eighteen wheelers on my left, cows grazed. Rather than rest stops we passed old barns.

When driving on 95 I am comfortably numb. No thinking. The miles click by as each looks like the one before and after. When we keep traveling the ‘known’, the mind gets bored and wanders off on a trip of its own. We stop seeing. On this brand new path though, I noticed how alert I became. More aware. More awake.

Red shutters on the old stone house.  A Christmas tree farm. The hawk perched on an electrical line.

In life, like our weekend road trips, most of us take what feels most comfortable. Whatever is easiest and quickest. We know the turns and what to expect. But when we are forced to take a detour (or at times choose one) everything becomes a bit more vivid. And how often do we look back at life and say ‘thank goodness!’ I was forced to veer into another lane?

By the time we pull up to our destination I am hoping I canfigure out how to take that same route back home on Sunday. Suddenly the thought of I95 is undesirable. I had been asked to travel a new path and realized it was a gift.

What other detours can I take?
SARAH