The first proper rain over the Karoo this year has
washed away the season’s dust leaving everything fresh over the past
day or three. To many 15mm (or just over
half an inch) won’t sound like much but down here it is almost 10% of the
annual rainfall and for quite a few of our local farmers it has come just in
time to save livestock and landscape. Which is great.
Rain over
the Karoo – Rob Millenaar
My post-shoulder-surgery rehabilitation programme
means I have to travel the 167 km (104 miles) to George which is our nearest
city and back twice a week for the next while. The rain has been wonderful for the
farmers and tourists, but it does mean that these trips now easily take an extra
hour or two which puts massive pressure on an already over-full schedule – and explains
why no post was made yesterday.
There are two ways to respond to events that slow you
down despite yourself: frustration or celebration.
Like most people my natural instinct is the
former. My salvation is the latter. Somewhere between there and here it dawned on
me that whether I have smoke coming out of my ears or not makes absolutely no
difference to how early or late I am going to be so I may as well sit back and
take in the scenery.
Years of experience has brought the understanding that:
Refusing to become frustrated is a choice. You either make it, or you don’t ... and it really doesn't help to blame that guy in front of you who doesn't know how to drive!
While I initially struggled to keep the demons of
impatience at bay I found it a lot easier once I made it a conscious choice and
whenever the occasion arose physically decided to take a more relaxed mental
route in the same way as I might decide to take a scenic rather than an express
route.
It never ceases to amaze me how this enforced down
time which I used to think of as idle or wasted hours unfailingly adds unexpected
value in unexpected places.
Driving requires a fair degree of focus to begin
with. The passing landscape sponges up
the rest of one’s concentration without you even noticing it so that for much
of the time that one travels there is no space for the mental noise that
usually jabbers away all the time.
Magic happens when the mind is quiet and you spend
time with yourself.
As Anne Michaels so eloquently put it in the wonderful
opening line of her novel “Fugitive Pieces”: “Time is a blind guide”.
When you become quiet in this way your subconscious
and the universe conspire to reward you with insights, answers and peace –
though not necessarily in that order and not necessarily all three each time.
Once you do become aware of what happens if you trust
the universe to get you to your destination at the right time (which is not
necessarily the same as your preferred time) each trip is like one of those
Lucky Packets with mystery toys we used to get as children: that it will be fun
is a given; what it will contain, a mystery. You may somehow remember where you put that extra set of car keys that
have been lost for a while, or what to say in your next post or you may just be
more in touch with where you want to be, you can never know in advance.
Time may be a blind guide, but as Kinky Friedman once
said: “The unaimed arrow never misses”.
Comments