Zen and the art of surviving Motor Vehicle Madness

I was all decked out, sparkly jewelry in place, birthday gift at my side, cruising along the 118 minding my own business.  The road seemed especially bumpy, which wasn't far from the norm on the 118, which has always been a rather bumpy ride. So, I changed lanes to see if the fast lane was any better, but no it wasn't.  About ten seconds after I changed lanes I felt a KABLAMO on my rear end, I looked back there and there was a strip of something flying behind me, my car swerved, rocked on two wheels and really tried to get away like a bucking horse. FYI, apparently 80 IS a little fast.

 Now, I have been in accidents in the past and normally my heart explodes into my throat and my body buzzes with adrenalin. Oddly, that didn't happen.

In the past two years or so I have been working with myself to be more Zen about life. Instead of trying to control every detail and getting all stressed when things don't go as I think they should, I have recently been breathing deeply and moving on. After all, there really is very little we CAN control and the number one thing on that short list is how we react to the world around us. So, as I regained control of my car, flipped on my hazards and moved slowly across the five lanes, I was at once irritated I would likely be missing the party I was all dressed up for, considering what I was going to be doing in the next half hour ( mainly changing a tire and standing on the side of the freeway) , and proud of myself for regaining control of the car and NOT flipping over.

Seeing the mass damage my fucked up tire caused  in the blow out would normally have sent me into a panic, but my new found view let me breath deep and move right along. 

Nothing I can do about the bent metal at the moment.  Once I checked out the damage I called out to my support team, namely my husband  (who really couldn't do anything since I had our only car) and my brother.  Just as I was trying to remember  what the man at the dealership had told me about where my spare was four years ago, a man in a bright yellow vest appeared.  My first thought was that it was Cal Trans and I was busted for littering  the freeway with the broken pieces of my tire, but no, he was a member of an elite force of people with trucks whose job it is to rescue stranded people with busted ass tires.

  I had never heard of the Metro Freeway Patrol, a free ( sigh of relief) service that drives up and down the freeway helping stranded motorists. I informed him my brother was on the way, but he went straight to work helping me figuring out where the spare was, and  getting right down to business changing the tire. Being the kind of woman who likes to do for herself, I offered to help with the tire change a few time, even considering my nicer clothes, but he would have none of it. He finished up just as my brother arrived to be my safety escort home. 

I am still very proud of how calm I remained during the whole debacle, and how calm I still am considering the fact that I will likely be out a car until I win or inherit a large sum of money.

While I am not a religious person, the Zen philosophy of letting go that which we cannot control has given me a new, calmer, view on life. You should try it, it's pretty super. 

The Olympics, Curiosity and what it means to be human

My first real memory of the Olympics was watching the torch run past me. I didnt understand it really, other than the fact it had come very far and that it all had something to do with M&M's . Years later I would reach back into my own memory and be touched by the fact that I had seen with my own eyes a symbol of the games. As I grew and learned more about what the games represented, or what they should represent anyway, I loved them more and more. 

The idea that all the peoples of Earth could join together in weeks of sport, that representatives from warring nations could compete side by side in peace, it gave me hope. Heck, it still gives me hope today! This year, yet another Olympic mile stone was passed. For the first time in Olympic history there was a woman competing from every nation. In a time when it seems that even in this country the rights of woman are in retrograde, there walked in pony tails, head scarves and full of pride the woman of the world. And of course I cried like a wee baba. Some of these woman faced death threats, taunts of "Prostitute"  or "Whore", but still they walked with strength and pride giving hope to some little girl, who maybe doesn't understand the Olympics yet but will one day look back and know she was there!

Still riding the emotional wave of the games, I was also getting amped for the latest endeavor from our good friends at NASA. Being an avid fan of not only science fiction, but also of science fact, I have had my ear on this as long as they have been planning it. I jumped at the chance to send my kids names up with the rover in October of last year, and was totally bummed when the launce was delayed. But then it was happening, really and truly. I dragged the kids along with me to a seminar on the rover itself and the upcoming launce where we got to put hands on the material that would be used to land the rover and let me tell you, if you think it looked flimsy on film I am still amazed that stuff worked!  Then, when the time came, I sat in a dark, sleepy house on my lonesome and waited.  If this mission failed it would be a huge disappointment and a waste of ten years of hard work from NASA and JPL. And if it worked...

I had begun to doze when cheers of joy filled my head phones and the simple black and white image showed up on my monitor. I may as well have been there myself, I jumped up, clapped my hands, and cried . We, the human race, had done it again. We had reached out into the stars and succeeded.  

This past month I have been renewed with hope for this human race. While the world seems on the verge of erupting into some crazy socioeconomic cluster fuck there are still those striving ever to improve what we are, who we are, and what it means to be human.  We are strong, we challenge ourselves to be better, faster, stronger, to move forward and explore the unexplored, to learn more everyday and to understand ourselves  and this beautiful planet better than we did yesterday.

Can we overcome our differences?  Can we be strong despite our weaknesses? Can we work as one to achieve the greatness humanity has the potential for? I have hope that the answer is yes. As long as there are those risking it all to be the first  we have hope.