It's so easy to get sidetracked, isn't it?
On the drive from Philadelphia to New Haven, my husband and I drove fifty miles out of our way because of one small mistake. Was it carelessness, an unavoidable error, or something else? It's hard to know for sure. But there we were, thrown miles off track, with nothing to do but go forward.
Has this ever happened to you on the road? What about in life?
In the first year after I finished theatre school, I got a call from a cruise ship company offering me a seven-month contract as a dancer. I was surprised. I thought they were going to offer me a singer's position. I turned them down with the hope that they might change their minds and ask me to sing.
They didn't.
It felt like a big mistake at the time. I was watching my exit fly past as I flew down the road at a hundred kilometers an hour. I was wasting valuable time and energy in a huge detour.
Then I got a call. Did I want a gig in my hometown, choreographing a full-length show for the first time ever?
And another call, this one from a certain great guy I had had a crush on since our first meeting in grade seven homeroom. Did I want to go for coffee?
A few years and one big question later, we're married.
From where I stood that first year out of theatre school, I could never have predicted where my life is now. The twists and turns have been many; some for better, some for worse. The detours have, in many cases, led me away from the arrow-straight highway of success. But I wouldn't trade this sweet, soulful, winding road on which I find myself.
Miles and miles out of the way of our destination, my husband and I stopped for a break at a road-side rest stop. We stood surveying the scene, stretching out our car-cramps. My husband ate a ripe plum and it oozed down his chin.
The sun was beginning to set behind the distant peaks of the Catskills. The dusk was warm and fragrant with the smell of moss and damp earth. Ivy climbed in a verdant frenzy up the towering trees that wrapped around us. I shaded my eyes with my hand and gazed out over the golden trees.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" I asked.
He nodded, grinning. The sun behind him created a halo of light.
"Beautiful," he echoed.
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