I have been away from writing and on hiatus for a while and my monthly blog post is now a seasonal one. I thought of calling this blog “On Hiatus” but opted for what you see here above.
Life steps in sometimes and calls you elsewhere. You can say I have been elsewhere. Or Elsewhere as the case may be if you are in the world of The Giver by Lois Lowry, a dystopian novel I have taught with advanced eighth grade students. It explores the idea that if conflict arises from differences, what if we lived in Sameness? And if problems arise from unsafe situations or challenging choices, what if things were controlled and decided for us so we could feel safe and comfortable? I must say, what thoughtful discussion and debate arose! If you ever get to this book, which I highly recommend, be sure to read her Newbery Award Acceptance Speech when done. Outstanding!
Like all of us sometimes, I have had a season of unexpected events and demands on my attention and time. Life leads us, for the most part, and not the other way around so it’s all good.
But these unexpected events also included an onslaught of trifling things like misplacing keys and shoes and umbrellas and dropping things like the phone and the remote for the AC, both of which don’t work entirely right now. Some of my astrologically minded friends blamed Mercury Retrograde. Be that as it may, what follows is one for the books.
I helped my sister move this summer. Twice. Some things were stored at my house when she moved out and the rest with a professional moving company. I transported things to my house over a series of days with the move out, and the day of her move into her new place about a month later, I transported the first lot of her things back to her there.
I loaded what would be most important into my car. First her file boxes with important papers, then a box with her 3 fire extinguishers, and last all of my nephew’s college things he would need as he was headed back to school later that week. I was feeling very good about how I packed the car and went on my way.
About a third of the way into my 50-minute journey, I hear something making a kind of winding noise in the trunk. I thought it must have been one of my nephew’s video games or something along those lines. I keep driving.
Then I notice smoke in the rear view mirror. It was rising in the back hatch that is my trunk! Oh no, one of his games malfunctioned and is on fire!
Right after I have that thought, the winding noise becomes a louder hissing and the entire car is filled with smoke! I try not to breathe in as I open all the windows and look for a place to pull over on this winding yet often traveled country road.
My nearest pull off ends up being someone’s driveway. I get out of the car to breathe in and out deeply when I realize that it was one of the fire extinguishers that went off! There is white dust everywhere! All over in the car I just had cleaned professionally the week before. All over my sister’s things! And there was white dust all over me! I gingerly open the trunk to see that the extinguisher that went off was tipped over and did not have a pin in it. I-yi-yi.
My sister looked at me quizzically when I finally arrived and offered to pay to have my car cleaned as she brushed off my shirt. Poof! A cloud of white dust but at least it was only white dust. It could have been much worse.
Here’s the larger lesson that came to me on the drive back home that evening. Not all that smokes is fire. We all connect dots incorrectly sometimes and get ourselves distraught because we see a situation and make an incorrect inference about it.
This was a reminder to be open-minded to consider other possibilities, not to be so quick to jump to conclusions or to judge.
And, of course, to be absolutely sure the pin is in the fire extinguisher securely before transporting it in your car.
While the next time you see smoke it might be fire, it might also be something else!
article photo: Chuttersnap on Unsplash