Take Two

Onward again, with alterations in packing list, route, and outlook. Fewer clothes, more food for the plane. New words to carry. 

In September, I posted this quote about obstacles, anticipating difficulties on the road. I just rediscovered it today and am amazed at how differently it reads. The words have changed and new parts strike me with more meaning, though the metaphor is just as applicable as before. And reviewing this blog and our imminent departure, I'm seeing new light in our journey, even though life has taken a completely different turn. So before I become annoyingly poetic, I'll let Tom Robbins speak again:

“Perhaps a person gains by accumulating obstacles. The more obstacles set up to prevent happiness from appearing, the greater the shock when it does appear, just as the rebound of a spring will be all the more powerful the greater the pressure that has been exerted to compress it. Care must be taken, however, to select large obstacles, for only those of sufficient scope and scale have the capacity to lift us out of context and force life to appear in an entirely new and unexpected light.

For example, should you litter the floor and tabletops of your room with small objects, they constitute little more than a nuisance, an inconvenient clutter that frustrates you and leaves you irritable; the petty is mean. Cursing, you step around the objects, pick them up, knock them aside.

Should you, on the other hand, encounter in your room a nine thousand pound granite boulder, the surprise it evokes, the extreme steps that must be taken to deal with it, compel you to see with new eyes. Difficulties illuminate existence, but they must be fresh and of high quality.” 

Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues