as sunflowers age, their woody stems lose the ability to turn back and forth – east and west – in their track of the sun. instead, their older, more mature stalks keep them more planted, most often facing east – to capture the rising sun and warmth from early morning’s rays, to stoke up.
now, i’m guessing that it would be easier for the sunflower if it were able to continually use their magical heliotropism superpower their whole life, but – much like humans – some of their flexibility fades as they get older and they deal with life differently as an aged sunflower.
in the storylines of our own lives, it would be much easier if we were able to constantly pivot to goodness – the sun, easy answers, fixes, healing solutions, the fair solving of problems, any evil affecting us succumbing to accountability.
to think that all might go our way – the first time – or, heck, any time at all – sounds mighty fine.
but life as a sunflower isn’t like that. and neither is life as a human.
instead, lots of times we must set down our expectations and take a breath. a deep breath.
we allow a bit of time to readjust: to maybe grieve, to pine for a different result, to rail over outcomes dashed.
we reassess. we sort. we brainstorm.
we strategize. we plan.
we gear up.
and then – we rise up – with strong and straight spine – and face the next day, ready for what comes next. whatever it is.
if only it were all that simple. seeing into the future, that is. we might be able to avoid the potholes, the pitfalls, the problems that are in our merry way. but, alas, that is not so. and, unlike oatly and its humorous point-on prediction on the lid of its coffee “ice cream”, we struggle between punting and pure intuition, hopping and skipping and maybe crawling our way into the future.
punting is a given. everyone punts. the older i get, the more i realize people are making it up on the fly. lots of experience, education, research, failures and giant successes help, but it is all kind of punting, after all.
but intuition is a funny thing. we can hear it in our inner ear; we can feel it pokin’ at us, like a snickers bar supposedly pokes at our tummies. sometimes we listen and other times we poo-poo it, dismissing it as frivolous or overly obsessive thinking. there are times, however, when we listen and it is spot-on.
in 1993, in august, i took both my small children to the mall. my daughter was three and my son just seven months old. we went to walk around, watch people, maybe purchase a few things. we were going to stop at mcdonald’s on the way home, as we always did, to have a happy meal. driving back from the mall i made up silly songs about going to mcdonald’s and my little girl was excited. this was our mcdonald’s, the one where she knew how to carry her little meal from the counter, around the corner into the back dining room, to the very back table opposite the rear door, the farthest away from people smoking, because, back then, people still smoked in restaurants.
as we drove down the main road of our town toward the mcdonald’s, in the middle of silly songs and a gleeful child’s anticipation, i heard it.
“don’t go to mcdonald’s,” the voice said.
it was clear. i looked around, surprised to even hear another voice. but there was no other adult in the minivan.
“don’t go to mcdonald’s,” it repeated.
i shushed what i now believed was the voice in my head and continued singing our mcdonald’s happy song.
it got more demanding, “don’t go to mcdonald’s today. don’t.”
that feeling you get in your belly started. the voice nagged me. i started to backpeddle, “well, maybe we will go home instead,” which made my little girl cry out, “no!” from the back seat.
“go home and make a ham sandwich,” was the weirdest. but it was clear. the voice was a ham-sandwich-pusher.
i started to listen. i had lost my big brother just a year prior and he had shown up from time to time, a wave from the next dimension it seemed. and he loved ham sandwiches.
i had to decide fast because we were rapidly approaching the mcdonald’s. i excitedly told my little girl, who – in three-year-old fashion – did not pivot immediately, that we were going to have a picnic at home instead. that we would have ham sandwiches and potato chips and we’d play we’re-on-a-picnic.
we passed the mcdonald’s and kept heading home, a few miles away.
by the time we were unloading into our house i heard the sirens in the distance. the house phone was ringing when we walked in.
“did you hear what just happened at mcdonald’s?” my girlfriend asked.
my stomach lurched.
a man with a gun had gone in the back door of the restaurant and started shooting people. tragically, two people at the table opposite the back door were killed.
i don’t know if they had happy meals; i know we would have.
i know if i could have seen into the future i would have planned on – and sang songs in the minivan about – ham sandwiches and a picnic on the living room floor. i know that tiny bit of adamant intuition-voice saved our lives. i don’t know how that works. i will not question it.
reverse threading 