Do you have a mental dock? How's September looking from there?
When I was a teenager, and I saw those magnifying makeup mirrors at Costco, you know, the ones that light up and magnify your face a bazillion times? I thought those mirrors were symbols of self-importance and vanity. But then my eyes failed me, and in order to see what was going on with my face, I had to sit at my desk and gaze into one of those vacuous mirrors. It was humbling.
Now, to feel better about the portion of my morning I spend gazing at myself in a mirror, I changed my viewpoint. I walk to the edge of my mental dock (please tell me I’m not the only one who has a mental dock) and I study the horizon for oncoming trouble as I run down My List.
My List begins with my husband, continues through each of my children, their spouses, and their children. I ask silent questions from the end of my dock. Are they up yet? What does their day hold for them? What are their challenges? Are they okay? What’s on their horizon? What’s ahead for them? I may be tweezing a hair that’s sprouted from my chin, but I’m thinking about somebody on My List from the edge of my dock.
There are days when distant rumbling storm clouds hang low on the horizon. There are days when the fog rolls in and swallows me whole. But there are also days when the view is so blindingly bright and beautiful to behold that I sit down on the dock and bask in the magnificence of life.
Later today, these people from My List will fill our home for the last time before our daughter’s family moves to California. It’s a twelve-hour drive. It isn’t too far. We will visit. They will visit. But today will become the last of our Sunday Dinners as we have known them.
Next Sunday, the view from the end of my dock will look different. And so will theirs.
We each have our own dock. We each have our own viewpoint. Mentally walking out to the end of the dock may seem like a stopping point, but it’s really stepping to the edge of possibility . . . to the very brink of beginning.
What’s on the horizon for you?
I hope this September you'll take a seat at the end of your dock and ponder the possibilities on your horizon, for you and the people on Your List.
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