At home, we may not realize it, but we follow hundreds -if not thousands- of unwritten rules in carrying out our daily activities, and add new ones every so often. For instance, “close your front door at night,” “empty the garbage frequently,” “wash the dishes right away,” “walk the dog,” etc. We do not need to be reminded of these rules as they are ingrained in us. Then, when you take a road trip like mine, there is a whole new set of rules you have to learn and apply right away. I have about 49 written rules that you will see, but hundreds of others that are called into action and apply uniquely to life on the road. For instance, “put on safety goggles around the fire pit,” “don’t smoke my pipe when climbing the ladder to the roof deck,” “sleep with my whistle and bear spay at hand,” and so on.
All of this is by way of saying that I added a new rule for my home life that may or may not also apply to life on the road. That rule is, “if you see a DCD on the road or sidewalk, pick it up or walk around it, but do not step on it”. You see, last night, as I was heading across Pennsylvania Avenue while I still had the walk signal, I suddenly came across a DVD on the road. Instead of walking around it or picking it up, I misjudged my stride and the ball of my right foot landed directly on it. As I stepped forward with my left leg, my right foot should have remained were it landed, but the DVD directly under the ball of my right foot skated backward and caused my right leg to rapidly skate backward with it, causing my right knee to smash to the ground. Down I went right in the middle of the road right next to a car waiting for the light to change. There wasn’t even time to think about how to break my fall. Fortunately, I did break the fall with the palm of my right hand and was able to pick myself up before the light changed. So far, it does not appear that I was injured in any serious way. My friend Karen, on the other hand, took a similar fall last week and is in an arm cast for several months and a full leg cast for another month. Had that happened to me, OTR would be postponed to 2019.
One of my problems is that my mind is being distracted by all the planning and preparation I have to do. I have to start practicing mindfulness.
ED
