Embracing Life's Detours

Sometimes pilgrimages go exactly as planned. Confession: never the ones that I plan! Often, however, their magic and transformative power lie in the things that go “wrong” and what we do with the detour.

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Today we thought we were taking a ferry out to the Isle of May, a National Nature Reserve that is home of 92,000 puffins and a much smaller population of gray seals.

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We packed a picnic, journals & all our magic supplies. We envisioned ourselves strolling amongst the ruins of the priory built around 1150. Looking for signs of the story beneath the story, marveling at the puffins.

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That image bears zero resemblance to the actuality of today when we were asked to don waterproof gear & board a small inflatable boat with a motor that all the locals call a RIB (rigid hull inflatable boat). We were drenched within minutes. At one point I was spitting sea water out of my mouth and blind because my glasses were blurred with said sea water. The video of beanie-faced Monica really says it all!

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It turns out I had mistakenly booked us on a sea safari. There was no landing, no departing from the boat. We bounced across the ocean, spray flying and then circled the island and returned after an hour and a half at sea.

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The way we deal with the inevitable gap between what we plan & what happens—in pilgrimages and in life—is what matters.

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So, what did we do? Mostly, we laughed—at our outfits, at my planning faux pas, at the absurd chasm between plans and reality. And then safely back on land, we made it a day to remember, in all its messy glory, starting with wine at the closest tavern, an impromptu whiskey tasting by the harbor, one of everything at the bakery & a meal in the sunroom of a restaurant perched on the coast on the two-mile walk home.

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What we didn’t do was go into self-flagellation mode. I didn’t beat myself up for booking the wrong trip. Andie & Monica didn’t get angry or passive aggressive about the day’s trajectory. We tried to live Monica’s mantra of “accept, embrace, allow.”

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It mostly worked. Would it work the next time something goes “wrong” in your life? Give it a try. No waterproof gear required!