Open
to Possibility
“Never
be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing
you actually find.”
Ann
Patchett
My mother, and my sister,
Jerrie, were not pleasant people to shop with. Shopping is not
something I enjoy (maybe for this reason), but going shopping with
either of them was shear torture. That was because they always went
with a clear idea of precisely what they wanted—a picture keenly
planted in their mind's eye. Never mind that this item only existed
as a figment of their imagination, or possibly something they'd seen
somewhere, but had no idea where to find. This scenario played out
many times in my youth; we went shop to shop, sometimes driving
around for hours, looking for that exact item and ignoring everything
else that was in any way different from the picture in their heads.
Most of the time they went home empty handed.
Once, my mother asked my
father to give her a new set of flatware for Christmas—a set she
had seen when they were shopping in Hickory. So he did—twelve place
settings with serving utensils right down to the pickle fork. Years
later, when I cleaned out her house after she died, I found them
stuffed in a drawer, still in their wrappers and box. He had gotten
the wrong set, so there they were, unopened.
There's something to be
said for knowing what you want. However, being closed to the idea
there may be something just a good—dare I say, maybe even better—is
pretty darn limiting. It's another of those concrete boxes I've
written about that make it hard to see what is outside. What works better—at
least for me—is to leave the options open, to wait and see what may
be. Have an open mind. In other words, leave the door open to the
cosmic interference and guidance of your soul. Lord knows where that
may lead! But, for sure, it will be more interesting than that slab
of cement.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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