Focus on the Windshield

Given that my word for  2013 is “Possibility,” how could I not click on the AARP video ad I saw on FaceBook:




“Watch our new video and find your Real Possibilities for work, money and community.” The text of the video:

"A car has a rather small rearview mirror so we can occasionally look back at where we have been. It has an enormous windshield so we can look ahead to where we are going. Now is always the time to go forward and re-imagine all the possibilities that lie before us."

When I got in my car several days ago for a couple hours of exploration in western Lewis County, my eye dropped onto the sideview mirror’s warning: “Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.” The juxtaposition of those two messages got their hooks into my imagination.

Our past can dog us even as the future is coming at us. There is nothing wrong with our past－well, there are always some regrets: things we wished we hadn’t done, things we wished we had done, and those we wish we were still doing－but the thing about it is, it’s over. We can’t live there. And if we keep looking back and letting our longings for what is gone take priority, we die. And we start calling that death life.

As AARP implies, it is good to look at where we have been a little bit, insomuch as our past can inform how we want our future to look. But mostly that big windshield is where our focus should be. And keep your eyes off the damn sideview mirror where that past wants nothing more than to catch up and snag you.

When I was driving across the country last summer, toward my new life, CuRVy’s windshield was my frame on the world. The life in the rearview mirror was getting farther away with each mile. All I had was this moment and this sky with these jaw-dropping clouds and this abandoned farm with the tilting windmill and this soy bean field with perfect undulating rows and this ditch full of water lilies and this circle of snow-capped mountains and this Venture.

And now what I have is Possibility.

Lent, as I have said annually on these pages, is my favorite season. It has been a time of turning inward, and giving myself permission to be self-focused. I have walked in the garden to see what is peeking out from dormancy. I have done collage to see what in my life has been stuck underground and wants to spring forth if I let it. I have built a fire and wrapped in a blanket for hours and not felt like I “should be doing something.” Because I was doing something: I was struggling to bring forth life out of death.

I am finding that inward walk harder to do in my new life. Without a job to provide a framework for my days, without the open space outside that frame that is clearly mine－mine to paint a dark sky color with an awakening streak of light splitting it open－I am having a hard time identifying what time is mine and what belongs to something else. But things change. This is a year of change, of adapting, of being open to new life. I am finding my way.

On Thursday, I went to the last session of my drawing class. I learned a lot in the class, and not only about drawing. For one, I was surprised to discover how much I like drawing faces. What was most surprising is that I have always thought the ability to do so was light years beyond my capacity. Apparently only because I never tried, and I never asked for what I wanted: to learn. I had my eyes firmly glued to the sideview mirror and the voice in my head whining, “You can’t,” arguably the two most debilitating words in the English language. The thing about drawing faces, I discovered, is that my rendering can look nothing like the model. But then I find one little thing: the too-wide mouth, the too-short forehead, the too-narrow face that isn’t quite right. I make that one small adjustment and suddenly the familiar face pops into recognition. Or at least comes closer. And I say, “Oh!” and then “Wow!” “No, I can’t” becomes “yes, I can.”

I observe again the significance of small adjustments over Capitol Lake before yoga on Wednesday. The gulls are fighting their way into some invisible wall of air, flapping hard and making little headway. Then, turning ever-so-slightly this way or that, they catch a current going their way and glide with ease.

As I watch the gulls, my mind drifts to myself trudging up the snowy hill on the Elk’s golf course, half a mile down the hill from my home, along with dozens of other children pulling sleds, heads bent and shoulders hunched pushing into the frigid wind. It is hard work. Then we turn, take a running start, fling our bodies onto our Flexible Flyers, and careen back down the hill shrieking with that exhilarating mix of terror and delight. And then we do it again.

The whispers I am hearing in this season of inwardness is to keeping looking through the windshield, to glance into the rearview mirror for what worked in the past (and what didn’t), to listen for what I want, to engage in the struggle, to make small adjustments as needed to direct myself toward my desired future, to stay open to Possibility.