Celebrating Ordinariness
I got up this morning at my usual time, 6:30 am. Shaved, showered, and dressed I went downstairs and pickup up the morning paper from the front walk. Then I took my morning pills for blood pressure, allergies, and depression, downloaded the days news from the Internet, grabbed my work materials and headed out the door for the drive to work.
In the car, I backed out and drove down the driveway, turned left onto my street past the yard waste and recyclable cans put out for collection each week. Another left and two blocks east took me to the main road. I turned right, slipped over into the left lane and turned left at the light. Following the road, I wound past the post office, the elementary school, the high school and some houses over to the next main road about a mile away. A right turn, followed by a left a block later and another quick right put me on the freeway to downtown. All of that took maybe five minutes.
Freeway traffic was a bit sluggish this morning. School started last Tuesday, and I've noticed it in the changing traffic pattern that always accompanies that start of the school year. But the traffic moved well. I cleared the usual bottlenecks around curves and major interchanges, and about ten minutes later I was off the freeway and onto the downtown surface streets. A few more turns and a light brought me to the parking garage connected to the building where I'm working now. I swiped in at 8:00 sharp for another routine workday.
Everything is ordinary here. Everything is working. The gasoline prices ran up fifty cents yesterday to $3.09 for the cheapest grades. That and the rain that passed through here Tuesday and left 3-5 inches of rain and some localized flooding are the only evidence of Katrina in my area. Life is normal and ordinary and safe.
I feel very lucky to be able to say all of that after spending an evening watching the struggles down south along America's Gulf Coast. It amazes me how much I take life for granted. My heart is near to breaking for those poor people struggling to survive down there right now, struggling to get back to what I have and take for granted: an ordinary day in an ordinary life.
God bless them all and watch over them in the days, weeks, months, and years to come. Their task is daunting. At the moment, like the hurricane that turned their world upside down, the media and government are focused on them and their plight. That focus will, like a hurricane, slowly drift off to other things over the next few days. It is inevitable.
Yet they will go on, striving to regain their ordinary lives. Let us rejoice and celebrate the ordinariness we have. We never know when our worlds will be overturned and our precious ordinary lives snatched away and we ourselves deposited in an alien situation to fend for ourselves as best we can.
In the car, I backed out and drove down the driveway, turned left onto my street past the yard waste and recyclable cans put out for collection each week. Another left and two blocks east took me to the main road. I turned right, slipped over into the left lane and turned left at the light. Following the road, I wound past the post office, the elementary school, the high school and some houses over to the next main road about a mile away. A right turn, followed by a left a block later and another quick right put me on the freeway to downtown. All of that took maybe five minutes.
Freeway traffic was a bit sluggish this morning. School started last Tuesday, and I've noticed it in the changing traffic pattern that always accompanies that start of the school year. But the traffic moved well. I cleared the usual bottlenecks around curves and major interchanges, and about ten minutes later I was off the freeway and onto the downtown surface streets. A few more turns and a light brought me to the parking garage connected to the building where I'm working now. I swiped in at 8:00 sharp for another routine workday.
Everything is ordinary here. Everything is working. The gasoline prices ran up fifty cents yesterday to $3.09 for the cheapest grades. That and the rain that passed through here Tuesday and left 3-5 inches of rain and some localized flooding are the only evidence of Katrina in my area. Life is normal and ordinary and safe.
I feel very lucky to be able to say all of that after spending an evening watching the struggles down south along America's Gulf Coast. It amazes me how much I take life for granted. My heart is near to breaking for those poor people struggling to survive down there right now, struggling to get back to what I have and take for granted: an ordinary day in an ordinary life.
God bless them all and watch over them in the days, weeks, months, and years to come. Their task is daunting. At the moment, like the hurricane that turned their world upside down, the media and government are focused on them and their plight. That focus will, like a hurricane, slowly drift off to other things over the next few days. It is inevitable.
Yet they will go on, striving to regain their ordinary lives. Let us rejoice and celebrate the ordinariness we have. We never know when our worlds will be overturned and our precious ordinary lives snatched away and we ourselves deposited in an alien situation to fend for ourselves as best we can.
posted by Tom | 8:40 AM
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