Air For Your Tires
On every road trip, I experience at least one setback. This time, on the Connecticut/New York border, I suffered not one, but two flat tires, derailing my plans of camping and hiking Bear Mountain, the highest “summit” in Connecticut. The closest tire shop, Millerton Service Center, was a few miles away, but closed for the evening. With no cheap hotel option, I decided to spend the night curled up in my sleeping bag on a nearby park bench and deal with the flat tires first thing in the morning.
Expecting a lengthy and costly repair, I was pleasantly surprised when the owners, Mike and Adam, agreed to get me in the shop right away, a full fifteen minutes before it even opened. Less than an hour later, my car was good to go. One tire patched and the other replaced with a used they had in stock. The total $75. They even fixed a broken brake light at no additional cost. Feeling grateful, I paid in cash, an even hundred dollars.
Moments like this remind me that life will always break a string in the middle of your performance or find a way to sabotage the best laid plans, not because it has some evil agenda, but because life is built on unpredictability. Part of its allure and beauty is the messy parts, where magic and mysteries lay dormant for the unraveling.
The key take-away, things can always be worse. It’s how you react that matters most. Do you rage against the current or go with the flow? Initially, raging is easy. It’s the emotional child in us crying out that the world isn’t fair. Playing the victim is easy too, taking away all personal responsibility. It’s only when we take hold of the wheel in a firm grip no matter the circumstance that we’re better suited for life’s randomness.
The road goes on, with or without us. Sometimes all we need is a little air for our tires from strangers to get us back on the road and to appreciate all the things that can go right, even when they go wrong.
After the repair, I stuck with my original plan and hiked Bear Mountain. On the trail, I ran into a Brit making his way from Georgia to Maine. His goal, to complete the Appalachian Trail in the six months allotted to him by his visa. I wished him luck and told him if it was up to me, he wouldn’t have to worry about being deported regardless of how long it took him to reach Mt. Katahdin. From my perspective, there’s enough air for everyone’s tires.
