This Ain't Nothing

Friday’s mental siphoning usually happens on the drive to and from work. Considering options, the weighing of alternative routes, and roads less traveled – it generally shows up in blips and blurbs of thought. Today being a Friday, the course continued as I ticked away the minutes following 18-wheeled flatbeds and milk haulers up the Thruway. I give friendly waves to the milk haulers. I figure we need them to know they’re important and are of the few and proud left helping to feed this country.

My mp3 player buzzes on with the song Every Reason Not to Go and I am reminded of my dear baby sister playing that same song and singing along as a reminder to my brother. At the time, he was dreaming of the consideration to work at crop harvesting and the very idea of him leaving left all of us excited, yet sad. He stayed; for now. But I could hear her singing as I listened and put my blinker on to move into the right-hand lane for someone who appeared to have a much more important place to go than I.


Thoughts: *every reason not to go…how about every reason TO go? How about that? Let’s see, number four-hundred and seventy three would be:


 - No matter the direction you point from our house at the center of Main Street, you would find friends, family, love


- Where we work hard with the feeling of sweat on our shirts Monday through Friday, and even Saturdays – but we pray for the chance to do it again the next week


- Where Sunday morning church service is a reminder to do better, to do right and to do the best that you possibly can every day


- Where street signs stand as memory markers for years of reminiscing on what it means to be raised well


- Where greenery flourishes: happy plants equal happy heart


- Where there’s good food on the table and music in the air


- The stars! January through December they’re outstanding, all wrapped in a blanket of Milky Way and falling periodically through the night sky with just the right amount of time to place a wish


- Where accountability marries responsibility – that’s a good one


- Community – have we forgotten? Family, friends, neighbors working to support encourage and understand each other – that makes a community


- Where I will write my books, paint my art, raise my family, teach and cook and clean and entertain those well off and less fortunate than I which gives us culture.


- And mostly – the reason to go: Family. (They are my heroes, they are my weakness)



All that I could muster at this point, was the desperate plea: “God, please protect us and show me how…”. As I spoke, a car pulled in front of me from the right and my shuffled mix of songs switched to the next in line. The crystal hanging from the rear-view mirror dangled like a pendulum and I look ahead to the car that was so hasty in their driving. That’s when I noticed the license plate ahead read: “UR VALUE”, the song played on with the words “This Ain’t Nothin’” and the sun shining through my windshield passed through that pendulum and showered me in rainbows. Promise. Remember the promise.



And there was peace.