By Eileen Spatz
Back in early-November, the streets around my home were being resurfaced. I assumed at first that the blank stretches of asphalt would soon be re-striped, but alas, that was not to be. Literally weeks, about six weeks in fact, passed before the lines were finally repainted.
At first, it felt somewhat freeing, even a bit adventurous, to drive the unmarked roads that wind through the gentle hills around my neighborhood. But as the days and weeks passed, it started to feel almost perilous. It was clear that people unfamiliar with the nuances of the roads were not quite sure about where on the road they should be driving. Were they in a bike lane, a turn lane, an island? It became kind of a free-for-all.
I liken this feeling, of a street without lane lines, turn lanes, or crosswalks, to the way I have been generally feeling for the last year or two. You know you need to move forward, but lately the whole world, and our future, seems so devoid of structure or predictability.
Is it just me, or does it seem, at least while we are still residing on the planet, as if we are on an unknowable journey to an unforeseen destiny? I know that I have felt pretty off balance of late, not sure of whether I should take this action or that, or to believe this person or that. Living in this rudderless reality simply feels destabilizing to me.
All my life I have followed a timeworn blueprint for life. You go to college, you begin a career, you get married, you have kids, and then eventually you enjoy retirement and spend time with the grandkids. Of course, not everyone follows that exact path, but you get my drift. Life was fairly predictable and we knew we were largely responsible for the outcomes.
Well, hello, for many of us things didn’t go quite as planned—no matter how much we toiled, or what efforts we made to shape our destiny. Still, even with our mishaps, misfortunes, or downright failures we still had a rough idea of how to proceed, how to right the boat.
Not so anymore! Like those line-less streets, there seems to be no sense of real direction anymore. We are completely on our own, with only our faith and our instincts to guide us.
People need a little direction, because when you can’t see where you are going it can get downright scary. Case in point…One day in early November I was driving home from seeing my mom in the desert. All was good until I got to the toll road heading into South Orange County and finding myself surrounded by thick fog, so dense I could not see ten feet ahead of me.
With no streetlights on the toll road, driving through this opaque fog in the darkness was so frightening that I slowed to a crawl, afraid I might plow into someone ahead of me. When I reached my town, I had to navigate a two-mile stretch of this treacherous fog on the newly resurfaced streets that had no lane lines! I literally couldn’t tell if I was heading right off the road.
Is our state, our nation, our world heading right off the road while shrouded in utter darkness? We have no clue as to how things will eventually pan out after the pandemic, and even less of a clue about how to navigate the forthcoming challenges. We truly have no one to rely on but God alone, while accessing the resourcefulness he has blessed us with to muddle through a murky future.
So, imagine my relief when, a couple of weeks ago, I was exiting my neighborhood to see the freshly painted bright white lines restored to the streets. As I turned onto the main street, I immediately felt calmer. Call me a coward, but I prefer having those lines on the road. With a world seemingly in utter chaos, at least these crisp new lane lines offered a semblance of sanity. After all, the lanes are there for a reason, right?
www.eileenspatz.com
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