Measuring Life in Odometer Miles

Do you ever pay attention to your odometer? I always look at my odometer; it's like my crystal ball. The miles I travel in my car are symbols for my life.

I remember pulling out of Ralph's two summers ago, after managing my first year there, at 45,000. I remember crossing the border between Queens and Nassau County on my way home from school last year, at 55,000. I'm constantly looking at my odometer in hopes of noticing these little coincidences.

Often, I will look at my miles, and the mileage will match the temperature exactly. For instance, tonight, as I was driving home from Border's, my odometer read 71,710 and it was 71 degrees out. How do these coincidences keep occurring? And why do I keep noticing them? I tell you what, though: I'm not going to pass them off as merely a chance occurrence.

My 71,710 drive tonight was kind of significant. Well, my odometer reminded me to check the significance of my drive and my night. I was at Border's reading up on some education and teaching material, preparing for my double-dose of interviews that I have tomorrow. I ran into the mother of a friend of mine, whose husband happens to be an assistant principal in one of the districts where I am interviewing tomorrow. Another coincidence.

Nervous as I was in preparation for tomorrow, I did, however, manage to crack a smile with the Border's employee who rung me up. Straying from the normal clerk-customer pleasantries, she responded to my "How are you" inquiry with, "Just a little sunburnt," (obvious from her lobster pigmentation surrounding her blue tank top), "but working through it." Continuing to catch me off guard, since cashier-banter is rare and mostly banal these days, she commented on my shirt, an image of Ben Folds that says "Sham On." We got to talking about Ben's touring schedule, and I asked her if she's ever seen him in concert. She remarked that she "hasn't had the privilege" and when I responded that he comes around the area pretty regularly, she said so matter-of-factly that she's "kinda from Kansas." And her fun, teasing matter made me laugh in an unexpected, much-needed way, that it made me wish that every interaction with a stranger should go this way, with a friendliness and a worldliness that proves each of us is inherently good and sincere, something I've been wishing would be proven to me for a long time. Unfortunately, I'll need some more experiences like the one with the lobster-colored Kansan to truly be convinced of that.

Earlier today, before 71,710, I was discussing with a friend of mine "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot, wherein I was trying to remember the line, "Do I dare to eat a peach?" So simple, yet so profound. Upon a reread of the poem, I am struck once again by the line, "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons," and it makes me think of how I've been measuring my life with the miles I travel in my car. There are so many metaphors I can discuss from here about the road of life, and as Martin Sexton says, "It's in the journey that we find that there is no destination," but I'll save the road metaphor for another place and time.

Backtracking just a bit, I will return to the topic of coincidences, on and off the road. Whenever I think of coincidences, chance happenings--a run-in with the parent of an old friend, a random encounter with a stranger, the alignment of my odometer--I can't help but think of James Redfield's novel, The Celestine Prophecy, in which Redfield discusses nine insights into human culture. A few of these insights revolve around a certain recognition of coincidences that occur in our lives from day to day. According to Redfield, we are to proceed forward from these coincidences until our awakening to life's coincidences opens us up to the real purpose of human existence on Earth, and the real nature of our universe in which we live. Whenever these things happen to me--at Border's, in my car, or wherever--I am always trying to place their significance in my life as a whole, or the story of my life as others might see it.

As I see it, my story is constantly changing, with new chapters beginning and ending with each (you guessed it...) turn in the road.