Right before the boulder rolled down the rock face and blew out my right front tire, i thought, “well, here we are.”
I am constantly reminded to trust the Universe. If we leave enough of our mind and spirit open to the vast possibilities in front of us, the unexpected can happen.
Despite my best efforts to control the cosmos around me, I have had so many moments where I’ve had to surrender—to let go of the wheel, metaphorically and sometimes literally.
“No one gets caught in a rockslide.” I still laugh at that.
It was a Friday afternoon, just before dusk. The sun had punched a hole in the spring clouds and turned the day into bluebird skies. The runs at Sierra at Tahoe were near empty, the snow sticky enough to toss you over the front of your skis or board—your choice. Still in my gear, my snowboard wedged between the driver and passenger seats of my white 2000 Eclipse, I was riding the high of spring turns. That rare, fleeting window of snow and sun and sore hips that marked the season’s end.
Then Nature reminded me of her power. The warmer weather had turned snow into streams, which froze and thawed in a constant rhythm, cracking open rock faces along Highway 50.
A rockslide hit my car just between Strawberry and Kyburz—an idyllic stretch of road without phone service and barely a shoulder. As the light faded and the quiet settled in, I sat in my car, unsure of what would happen next.
Then, like a scene written by the Universe itself, I heard the hum of gears and diesel. A reefer truck rounded the bend and slowed. The driver rolled down his window: “Do you want a ride?”
I did. I needed one. And off we went, back toward civilization, back to safety. He dropped me at the Strawberry Post Office just as the Postmaster was locking up.
The point of this story isn’t the ride or the rockslide. It’s the reminder: trust the Universe.
In an industry where our personal and professional lives are guided, steered, or forced into a ditch, into safety, or even wonder, I find this belief paradoxical but beautiful in the sting of its solace.
We are on the cusp, at the beginning and end of many changes in our businesses and industry. We control what we can.
And then we trust.
