Right after church Sunday, Brenda wanted to visit a friend of ours at Presbyterian Hospital uptown. She didn't want to wait until after lunch, so we went. After the visit I thought we might drive thru uptown and see if there was someplace we might want to have lunch. I was thinking of Mert's Heart and Soul, but didn't know where it was.
OK, let's just drive up Elizabeth away from the hospital and see if anything looks interesting.
There seemed to be a lot of traffic for a Sunday afternoon. And then police directing things at intersections. And groups of people walking in the same direction. Oh yeah, Panthers game.
I didn't want to go west toward the stadium, but I thought we might make our way to South Boulevard somehow (which was west) where I was a little more familiar with places to eat. We went north through uptown and just looking at the compass thing on the rear-view mirror, tried to make left turns to swing around the stadium traffic.
I got totally lost. Kept ending up going north or northwest. I was getting frustrated. And hungry. Basically we're taking the back way to Statesville! We weren't in a good area. We passed an intersection and then went further into
what felt like no-man's land, and I said, I'm turning around and going back. I meant to the intersection we just passed. She said, just keep going we'll get there. It was like she thought we were on a little adventure together. I was on an adventure all right, the man's adventure of Getting There, only I didn't know where there was or how to get there.
Finally I just whipped the wheel left at a corner, knowing we needed to somehow begin heading west. Not a good idea. Now we were in a neighborhood where we were very "out of place." And groups of guys in their teens and 20's were standing around, noticing how out of place we were. It would have been one thing if I was in that area with a guy, and we were on some kind of ministry trip or something. But being with Brenda, I pictured one of these guys stepping in front of the car -- and I'd have to stop, right? And then his buddies surround the car... OK, OK, that's not going to happen, I think, just get out of here, OK?
Then I'm scared I'm going to come to a dead end and have to stop and turn around, and more pictures of bad stuff happening pop into my mind. And I don't know how to get out of here. My heart is racing a little, and I'm hungry and then it bursts out of my mouth -- I'M NEVER LISTENING TO YOU AGAIN! Didn't yell it, but said it firmly. I think I repeated it, too. Sounded just like my 5-year old grandson. And Brenda gives me the what is wrong with you look and I step on the gas and whip right and then left and there's the road we turned off! And soon we're on Morehead, back in football traffic, but I don't mind this time, and my stress meter slowly starts going down.
Being harsh with her like that is against our (unspoken) rules, but she is gentle and even jokes with me, saying oops, I forgot, I'm not supposed to talk. We're both hungry and traffic is stalled and she offers to lean out the window and buy me a hot dog from a tailgating vendor by the curb.
Then she says it -- Wow, you know what we just saw? A man who is spiritual as long as he's in control. That's all she said. And I agreed. It's not anything new to me.
It's like if you were incredibly wealthy, living in a wonderful mansion, with a Mercdes-Benz or two in the garage, and there's that second home at the beach, and another in the mountains, and work and the family are going great. And one day you can't find matches to light your favorite Yankee Candle. And you get stressed and mad and upset. As if you have to have those matches, or life is incomplete. If that happened, someone would be right to call you on it, right?
I don't have the mansion or Mercedes or extra homes. But Brenda knows:
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