the beauty of "with"

I fully intended to write a post last night when I got home from Supper Club, but the clock had ticked past midnight by the time I got to it--in fact, it was one o'clock! I decided I would write it after a night's sleep since it was going to be late anyway. I chose the moment in my last waking minutes, cuddled under my wool duvet.

There were a lot of less than truly beautiful moments I could have dwelt on-- it was one of "those" days, with things REALLY not going my way-- but hot on the heels of one such memory came the flash of truth & beauty.

I made a wrong turn when driving to the home of our Supper Club hosts. Now a wrong turn isn't that big a deal if you can get yourself turned around quickly to correct the error, but this particular wrong turn is famous here in Vancouver-- the turn that won't allow correction for about 20 km. Even that kind of wrong turn might not be that big a deal, except when it's the umpteenth aggravating event of the day and you had, before heading out, seriously contemplated the advantages of skipping Supper Club in favour of digging a big hole and staying in it until you got some assurance that the world would stop picking on you. Moreover, it was dark and a freak fog had descended, making visibility very poor. Under just about any other circumstances, this mélange of circumstances would have sent me spiralling, but... (here it comes-- thanks for your patience) I wasn't alone. Now, I've felt the presence of God before, and know a little of what it's like to not FEEL alone when I am alone, but I'm not sure that would have cut it on Saturday night. I needed flesh-and-blood company just then and I had it. M and J were in the car with me, hurtling down the highway in the wrong direction with me, seatbelts fastened to the same unfortunate detour. Not only that, but they assured me they'd both made the same wrong turn before, they both had something to say to make me laugh about it, and M had her cell phone with her so she could call for alternate directions. So, instead of spiralling into self-pity or anything like that, my emotions did a u-turn and I ended up feeling thankful. In every other mishap that day, I was on my own, but in this one I had company. It made the world of difference.