Walk a Long Way

Last Thursday morning I found myself at a crossroads of sorts, having arrived there after taking what could easily be described as a pretty significant number of wrong turns... That morning I literally lost my way, crossed a bridge I’d never been over before, decided to follow my heart and ended up at an amazingly new vantage point… From a high rooftop in NE Minneapolis, looking out over the city that I’ve called home for almost fifteen years now, under grey skies and facing a cold, harsh wind, I saw my past and future stretched out like the streets and rails below, reaching into the distance…

A day later I was on a plane, headed toward a place I'd never been before.  I shared three wonderful days reveling in the blossoming shores of Lake Ontario, enjoying the myriad gifts of this changeable Spring...and, after a rather sad flight home, was back in Minneapolis again by late Sunday night.  I took a moment upon arriving to recharge and check my messages.  In my inbox was an email from my mom, sent at right about the time that I would have been sitting at a bar in the Detroit airport, sipping a few fingers of bourbon and listening to the bartender, Scotty, on the importance of family and his own dear mother who had passed a way a few years prior... Anyway, my sweet mother had sent me some writing from an astrologer on the coming solar eclipse which is taking place at the edge of my birthday, in two days.  I was only a little surprised that it read like the words of a fortune teller… Spring is a powerful time of year, for all of us, but the early weeks of May have always been especially so for me, and this one is of particular intensity, for a number of reasons.

So today over my lunch break, I read up a bit more on the eclipse, initially just looking for facts but then following various threads leading to uncanny insights in the words of wise strangers, as though I were opening the doors and windows of the advent calendar of my own life… I spent my entire break reading and then finally went out to grab some actual lunch at the Chinese place across the street.  I walked out into the warm sunshine and made it almost the whole way across the plaza before I realized that I didn't have any money with me.  I turned around and strode back.  A colleague of mine, who I'd enjoyed some conversation with about birds and politics and travel over happy hour beers yesterday evening, was out for a smoke across the way; he smiled, I waved.  He's one of those people I talk to a few times a year, and always seems to have something wise and interesting to say, some morsel of wisdom to ponder... I went in to get some cash, and on my way back out, met him coming in.  "That was a long walk," he said.  We exchanged brief pleasantries about how nice the weather was and I turned to go after my lunch.  "Walk a long way," he said.

A mantra for today. Walk a long way...

I was still musing on that when I reached the intersection, and by the time I crossed the street was thinking yeah, it would be a good day to go further, maybe wander downtown and look for some new lunch fare, but... I should really stick to the plan and go where I was already headed, with the time I have and all the work yet to be done...and at the moment I made that decision, and took that first step to the right, a flower fell down from above and landed at my feet on the ground just ahead of me.  There was no one else close, no one coming or going, just me and that flower.  I stepped forward and glanced up before bending down to pick it up...had someone thrown it down?  A romantic idea, but silly... it must have fallen from several stories above...just a small cluster of geraniums, soft and bright pink on a short green stem, one of many many blessings that have fallen on me today, and in recent days.  I don't know that it means anything, but I do know that it's not every day that flowers just fall out of the sky and land at your feet.  I hope similar blessings are falling on you.    

More to come in the next few days, on this rare and powerful eclipse...