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Sweat. Nausea. A racing heart. Check, check, check. All the signs of fight-or-flight response are present and accounted for. Hundreds of taillights flicker in and out of view as we race headlong into darkness. I want more than anything to slow down, to stop, to get off the road and breathe. Not an option.
Fear is still embedded in a memory as clear as that night was not. Exhausted by a transatlantic flight, I had merged mindlessly onto the freeway out of LA International, then realized too late that coastal fog had rendered visibility near zero. No one seemed to notice. We were still going 70 miles per hour. I couldn't slow down, pull over, or stop without risking a rear-end crash.
This morning's experience has been gentler. I am sitting in the living room with a warm fire. When I got up this morning and checked for a view of city lights, the darkness was startling. It took a moment to recognize the overnight fog of winter inversion. Ahhh...
I struggle with fog at any speed. My desire for direction demands a clear view of the road ahead. My craving for certainty insists on orienting itself to the landscape. But we do not always get what we want. Fog, whether literal or metaphorical, is intrinsic to life. The questions are always hanging in midair: Where am I? Where am I going?
I make plans. In fact, I make fantastic plans. I work out the details, generate what-if scenarios, and develop Plans B, C, and D. I do my best to penetrate and prepare for the fog of possibilities that lie ahead.
Yet, I am often surprised. I miss my flight. The projector breaks. I catch the flu. My business fails. Shoulder surgery. A heart condition. What next?
It takes a stout heart and firm resolve to wake and rise on foggy days. It takes even more to go outside and accelerate to freeway speed. Driving in the fog calls for caution. It calls for mindful attention to detail and intuitive response to changing conditions. It also calls for faith: the faith that other drivers will maintain an even speed and direction without dramatically slowing, veering off the road, or stopping without warning.
As I sit in my living room watching the sun struggle to break through, I breathe deeply and inhale the lesson of the day. It takes a stout heart and firm resolve to wake and rise on any day, as every day has its large share of the unknown and unknowable. As I emerge from the safe cocoon of knowing where I am, I enter the hazy reality of where I am going. Today. Tomorrow. For the next year and more.
I can choose a direction for my travels, but cannot see the details and do not know for sure what I will encounter or where I will end up. I can, however, trust that the momentum of life will carry me through. I can trust that I have the strength, resolve, and intuitive wisdom to navigate the unknown and adjust to whatever arises.
How do the unknown and the unknowable affect your life? Can you proceed with faith? In what do you place your trust?
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