***A late post. I wrote this on Tuesday and scheduled it for yesterday but it didn’t go through so here it is today and I will post #19 a little later…
A backpack. A sleeping bag. A yoga mat. A cancelled connecting flight. A night on the Starbucks bench in the Houston airport. Destination: Little Town Mexico.
Ingredients to getting a little lost.
I love my husband and my kids. And I love what we have. This is not me escaping, a middled aged attempt at capturing youth. (Although the big backpack and sleeping bag does look a bit suspect.)
I am intentionally choosing to open myself up to getting comfortable with the unknown. I am sitting writing this in Houston unsure of anything past this moment – sitting on a sleeping bag beside friends – the one I am traveling with and the new one with whom we are keeping company during this long night at the airport.
Weather and crew problems are wreaking havoc on all flights. Tornado and tropical storm warnings and crew unavailability clutter the screens.
We don’t know if our flight tomorrow, or any flight for that matter, will be cancelled again.
John Keats talked about negative capability, “that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties. Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.”
Being capable of being in uncertainty. Finding contentment in getting a little lost. Choosing to wander without always knowing the way and surrendering to a dash of chance and a pinch of mystery.
How will we know what we are truly capable of if we don’t test our boundaries? How will I feel an authentic sense of discovery if I always know what to expect or always have some sense of the direction I am headed?
Waking up and finding yourself lost is not the same as choosing to be. Choosing to sink into the unknown builds a resilience that can’t be built when there is no real risk of being lost.
I have a faith in myself and in the world that allows me to be right here and to make connections with others especially when I need help finding my way.
And the unforeseen has given me gifts to simply recognize that we all need to get a little lost sometimes to find what we are really made of.
***
100 scribbles…hurriedly writing the here and now.
#100scribbles
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