Looking For Calm

I was dropping Caroline off at school today and I glanced in my rearview mirror to see a young girl hop out of the driver’s seat of her dad’s car and her dad hop out of the passenger seat. They met each other at the tailgate, she retrieved her bag and was off and running to class (like my daughter because we were arriving a few minutes late), her dad walked and returned to his original spot in the driver’s seat. I remember this scene as if it was yesterday when I was 16 and the proud holder of a Learner’s Permit. I would go out with my dad and practice driving. He was patient and kind, even when I made mistakes but he never seemed to be stressed or at least he didn’t show it on the outside. He would gently remind me if I waited too long to use my blinker or if I was a too short on the stop or if my acceleration got a little out of hand. How do we let go of control in situations like this? Letting go of control when we have little anyway requires some hope and faith that things are going to be okay. Getting too far ahead of where we are in the present moment does not inherently allow us to be in the now of living our experience. It is way too easy to get lost in thought about what might happen and to conjure up all kinds of stories in our heads and our hearts about what the outcome could be? And how often is this story correct? Or do we lose unnecessary time contemplating what might be instead of what actually is?

I love the photograph above. It was taken along El Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spain. It reminds me that the path isn’t always straight and the curves vary but inevitably it will lead us where we need to go to get to the next place. Perhaps not in as timely a fashion as we might like or perhaps in a messier way than we imagined or in a route that feels circuitous. But the point is we do get there, and I believe that practicing being mindful assists us in arriving. Like the father who was probably terrified to let his daughter drive to school, the parent who is afraid to send their kid away for the first time, the person who has not yet received a diagnosis or is awaiting a treatment plan, someone who might be putting themselves out there in a job search and is waiting to hear the outcome, or someone who has suffered an unimaginable loss. Each of these experiences or realities can be anxiety producing and they can easily sweep us away to “what ifs.” Instead, (I learned this from a wise Jesuit teacher) we could focus on the “what now” as a means of keeping ourselves in the present and attending to the things that we can and do have control over without getting too far away from what is happening in this moment.