Listen to the Universe

Ever feel like you are the snail and the steps are the world? Like your existence in the universe is to slowly slime your way over some right angles towards...an impenetrable door...while avoiding being crushed by a well-meaning toddler?

Yeah, there are just those days. I have a schizophrenic CD collection, nothing close to an iPod, and I definitely don't have Sirius...I have...the radio. Granted, it's not a punch-button style, I can actually hit a button to scan, but I am always at the mercy of the radio-gods. Silly right? But like tarot cards (which I know nothing about) I read into the radio broadcasts some days.

Lately, the radio deities have been favorable to me, seeming to program the stations I frequent with poignant songs that I love. Selecting theme songs for the commute I am presently in. Gray, frustrating commute? They deliver melancholy magic. Bright and surprisingly quick? Here's a tune to keep you light on the break pedal. Nothing on at all? Well, I really needed that quite time to work something out in my mind anyway.

(Roland pointing out a snail for me.) So after a particularly interesting day a work, sprinting to get the kids, racing into stand-still traffic I remember turning on the radio hoping for a soothing miracle...and radio didn't disappoint. Which was good because I was thoroughly confused why we were stuck in traffic.

And then it happened. It started hailing. Like crazy. And cars are panicking and stopping. On the INTERSTATE. The wind is beating down on the car, blowing it sideways and hail seems to be coming down horizontally, if that makes sense. I see a larger truck, turn on my hazards and slink up beside him, using his rig to block the hail and cut the wind. It's blinding out for some reason and visibility is slim to none. And then we push through it, emerging on the other side of this freak of nature and there's wide open I-40 and a rainbow. Seriously, a rainbow. And I'm doing my best the whole time to explain calmly to the kids what is going on, and what hail is, and why we can't see, and why it's so loud, and then...what a rainbow is and how it's made and what colors it's comprised of...and you just find yourself thinking, what the hell is going on today?

And then the radio plays another favorite song. We get home and the sudden spring shower has brought out the snails that love our front steps - by the hundreds - and after I safely clear the path so we don't step on any, the kids and I explore the puddles, count the critters and talk about storms. I check the car for damage an it appears the hail just removed dirt and grime. My car looks like a leopard. Meanwhile, what could have been the craziest day that might have pushed me well over the edge...was tempered by radio that helped me savor the snails, sit on the wet front porch steps in work attire and just ponder my place, which apparently, is just to enjoy the randomness of life, much like I love the randomness of the radio.

Rock on!