You are my pothole, my only pothole….You make me happy when skies are grey…..Sing along!!!!!

Well, maybe not.

I ended up being grateful for a pothole just recently.  You know how time and time again rotten things happen to us, and then low and behold something good comes out of them?  This was one of those times….and I ended up singing that silly song!

I drove up to Burlington, VT for the Level 1 Biofield Tuning class (more on biofield another time).  I went all by myself, and the trip lasted 5 days in total, with all the travel.  The fact that I made this journey is pretty epic for me at this point for several reasons.  One, I haven’t gone away by myself for a long time.  Two, I’ve never gone away for so long (I don’t think….).  And three, I’ve never driven so long and far without company.

 

Another thing that made this trip especially interesting is that Andrew and the girls and I would travel this route north twice a year, for the most part, heading either to Middlebury, VT to visit his parents or to Essex, NY, on Lake Champlain, to vacation for a summer week with family.  So the route was familiar, only my previous experience had been doing it while playing “the rhyming game” with the girls or pontificating on pertinent points with Andrew!

I thank my girls for letting me go off so I could “follow a call,” so to speak.  They did just fine without me, and at 25, 20, and 17 I’m not surprised.  They are independent and strong young women.  And I thank Andrew for blazing the trail up north and giving me so many great things to remember while I did this trip solo.

I may not have taken this class had it not been for Andrew.  Finding out that it would be in Burlington, VT (a town we had visited numerous times during our treks by the lake) made me say, “I can do this!  I know Burlington!”  It made a new experience a bit more familiar.

I know, you’re wondering about the pothole.

First, I have to backtrack to a few days before I left on my trip.  Cut to downtown State College, PA and the moment Grace and I discovered that we had a dead battery in the Veloster (crazy name for a car….Grace takes it to Grier and back every day).  Dead battery means call Triple A.  Ah, Triple A!!!  Find the card.  Pull out the card.  The card is expired!!!!

Neighbors Jerry and Susan come to the rescue with a jump start!

I vow to call AAA.  (I need to buy jumper cables, too…..)

Now cut to the moment I’m packing for my trip.  Oh, I forgot to call AAA.  I pick up the info they mailed me (Side note: I get so many mailings from various places and they tell me I need to renew or resubscribe, but I swear that I just renewed a little bit ago, so it can’t possibly be time to renew again!)…..yes, I pick up the info and tuck it in my folder.  I don’t have time to call now, so I’ll call when I get there…….

You know what’s coming, right?…..Anyway, I leave for my trip the next day and stop to get gas.  I pull out of the gas station lot and my eyes fall upon the beauteous AAA building right across the street!  Oh, look, AAA is right there!  I could stop, but really, no really, I have to get on the road.  I’ll be fine.  I’m going on this “zen” trip to learn how to help people improve their quality of life, so I’ll be Just Fine!

The trip up actually does go really well despite pouring rain.  And the next few days go just great!  (More on that later!)  So we get to the last day of my classes and I’m driving to this “out of the way” bagel place (Andrew and I loved to find “dive-y” type places that seemed more real.) and in the distance, on the road, I see this dark spot.  Is that a patched spot?  A puddle?  I kind of looks like, KATHUNK!, a pothole!

This was a HUGE pothole, and I didn’t swerve in time!  But the car’s wheel didn’t pull, and I thought maybe it was ok.  Then the tire light on the dash came on……

Oh no, I forgot to call AAA!!!!  (Swears loudly)

To make a long story short I met Seth Helper who supported and advised me (even though he didn’t know me) and I called a tow truck, etc.  After my credit card caught some drag time the tire got fixed pretty quickly, and I did make it to my last class, albeit only a half hour late.

But here’s what makes me sing the pothole song….. When the blessed tire guy checked out my flat he looked at the Other tire on that side, and pointed out that there was a prominent bubble in its side.  Even I, musician and mom, knew that that didn’t look good…. He said if I hit the highway the next day with that bubble in there the tire probably would have blown!  (And who knows where it may have blown, causing an accident, or who knows what kind of trouble….)

You are my pothole, my only pothole!  Sing along!  And here’s the moral of the story!  When you are told once, twice, and then three times to do something….you’d better do it!!!  We are not left on this Earth to experience things all alone.  And even if we ignore the first admonition, or even the second or third, we are still not alone!  I am thankful for that pothole, and as annoying as it was, I’m glad that I was given “another chance,” so to speak, which helped me avoid an even worse disaster.

In the end I was able to finish my class and even got a quick trapezius rubdown from one of my classmates!  I had a nice visit with my sister in law, and I made it back safely to Lemont, ready to digest my experiences and move on toward exciting things for all of us.  (I also got a new AAA membership….)

I’m sure I’ll be writing more about biofield tuning and where I’m heading with that and my new reiki experiences.  Actually, I don’t know exactly where I’m headed with it all, but that is the beauty of it….

The beauty is…….

The beauty is that the guidance you need is out there.  It may be quietly knocking at your mental door or blowing out your tires!  You just need to pay attention to it, and then follow it.  Look and listen for the signs (and maybe symptoms?) and you won’t end up singing the pothole song!

And as for the jumper cables…..maybe I’ll get them next week……

: )