The ring of my cellphone exchanged itself for the voice of
the receptionist at the company for which I work. “Your afternoon appointment just called and
canceled. She thinks she might have the
flu and will call to reschedule when she feels better.” Unfortunately, I was already within hailing
distance of the location of my appointment.
It is situated in a busy urban area that hosts two huge shopping malls
on both sides of the main thoroughfare leading to the address. Traffic there is thick and threatening no
matter the time of day. The parking lots
of the malls add to the problem—they are mazes of sudden and twisting
cut-throughs where moving cars show up unexpectedly. In short, to maneuver this area safely, you
need eyes in the front, sides, and back of your head.
I had arrived
in the neighborhood early in order to have lunch at Sonic, America’s Drive-in which sits within the boundaries of one
of the mall’s parking lots. It was there
that I received the call about the canceled appointment. Although its bill of fare falls just a hair’s
breadth above the category of “fast food,” I like Sonic’s because it’s a throwback to the drive-in restaurants of my
teenage years where carhops brought your food to you on a tray that was affixed
to the door of your car. Inevitably
while chomping away at my food, Sonic’s turns
me wistful with memories of the good old days, and despite the menu, it’s
always a happy experience for me.
I had
received a new pair of glasses the day before—lineless trifocals, where the
correction is limited to a small circular area in the center of each lens and
in essence renders your peripheral vision a complete blur, and therefore,
useless. In order to see peripherally,
rather than moving your eyeballs and slightly shifting your head as usual, you
have to turn your head completely to the right or left to keep the circular section
in the your line of vision. Learning to
see through lenses such as these takes the discipline and practice-routine of
an Olympic athlete, and since I had worn them for fewer than 24 hours, I was
still slave to my old habits.
The
canceled appointment set me at liberty for the balance of the afternoon, and
despite the freezing temperature outside, how best to kill a few minutes of it
than to drive through the next-door Dairy
Queen and to treat myself to a whopping big vanilla ice cream cone, I ask
you? I was in the frame of mind of
treating myself that mid-December day because the 31st of the month,
when my New Year’s Resolution to make 2013 my year to slim down and shape up,
was bearing down on me like an out of control locomotive.
I pulled out of the Dairy Queen, the top-heavy treat
teetering dangerously in my right hand.
Lick, lick, I went at it as if I were a prisoner on death row eating my
last meal, and at my last mid-lick, I eased to a halt at the stop sign at the
terminus of one of those treacherous little cut-throughs. I looked to the left, then to the right, and
to the left again before pulling out and onto the busy street, and WHAM! the
right front fender of my pristine car made hard contact with the back left fender
of another car, a car moving far too swiftly for the conditions of the traffic. Nevertheless, I literally did not see it—not
at all! For all I know, the driver might
have failed to yield to me in an attempt to get
ahead of me in line. Although my gut
tells me that he did dish me, I just can’t say for sure.
Everything
in the universe has its purpose, and there is a purpose for everything in the
universe, and knowing this to be true, I set to wondering to what end this
accident occurred, the first one I have encountered in all of the many decades
of my driving history. It’s easy to say
that the spectacles and the ice cream cone were the culprits (or maybe Speedy
Gonzales in the other car), but at my core I recognize that they were mere
props in the opening act of the spiritual play that was unfolding before me on
that day. In the words of Dr. Deepak
Chopra in his breakthrough work, The Book
of Secrets, Unlock the Hidden
Dimensions of Your Life, “This accident was no accident; it’s a reflection
of myself. This stranger is a
messenger. When I find out why this
event happened, I will uncover some aspect of myself. I need to pay more attention to some kind of
hidden or stuck energy. When I deal with
it, I will be glad this accident happened.”
When I
set my mind to analyzing it, the notion of hidden or stuck energy called to a
knowingness at the deepest part of my soul.
Although it was clear to me that the other driver had been chosen as my
partner in this drama because he also had some energy that needed to get
unstuck (possibly an issue surrounding patience), still I didn‘t want anything
of the sort to happen again. Therefore, it
behooved me to pay attention and to decipher the message written on the bent
fender of my car.
The universe had been whispering in
my ear for a long time about my future path, but I couldn’t single out its
words above the non-stop ego-din in my head.
My mind was like an out-of-control classroom of kindergarteners fighting
over a position in line. “Teacher said I
can be first!” “No, she said I can be
first!” “No, it’s me!” “Me!”
“Me!” and on and on until I couldn’t take it anymore and I just shut out
the voices. But I was able to figure out
that the fender-bender was my signal that my mind was ready to transcend the
cacophony and to recognize the one voice that spoke my truth. After all, our minds want to transcend—minds
abhor statis. In medicine, statis is a
condition in which body fluids such as blood or the contents of the bowel are
prevented from flowing normally through their channels. All of us understand what that portends in
terms of the well-being of our bodies. Minds
are subject to the same principle.
Dr. Chopra’s directive that
“Insight and release go together,” is proving valid for me because now that my
energy is unblocked, I’m beginning to wade through and hone down the competing
options. Plans are taking shape in my
mind. I’m like Michelangelo chipping away
at the block of marble until the authentic and glorious David took the form of
the picture in the master’s mind. I
couldn’t accomplish that before. I
couldn’t do it until I was able to see that the message on the bent fender of my
car said, “Let go, be still, and let the universe do the driving.”
To read excerpts of my current and future books, I invite
you to log onto booksbylindaleegreene.gallery-llgreene.com/
