All Shall Be Well And All Manner of Thing Shall Be Well

I often quote Julian of Norwich when life appears to not be going as planned: All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well. It is a mantra that reminds me of my mother’s regular statement: And this too shall pass.

On a recent trip to Southern California I had one of those experiences. I had several wonderful days at my brother’s home in San Diego. At the end of that time, I borrowed his car to drive to Redlands for two nights for a nonprofit board meeting and several work visits. His wife, in turn, was going to take my brother to the airport to fly to Colorado for a 10 day silent retreat. All was good until…

Eighty miles from San Diego and twenty miles from my destination on the Southern California freeway 215, the cruise control seemed to quit working. Interesting but not essential. Then I noticed that nothing on the dashboard was showing any more—no electrical. I started to pull off the road and realized that I had no power steering. Thankfully, there was a flat gravel side to the freeway so I could get well off the road. I called my brother, who had not left yet, but he never answers his phone, so I then called Shari who called him who called me. So much for silent retreat mode as we talked with the traffic passing me. We agreed that I should call AAA and use his service that included towing for up to 100 miles so we could have the car taken back to San Diego to his garage and I would take an Uber to my meeting and figure out next steps from there.

AAA forced me to go to a text message which enabled GPS for my location. I filled out all the information, having to get into the glove compartment to figure out what kind of car I was driving. Then I waited…the text said 20 minutes to arrival to my location. I waited… I got a bit worried because I couldn’t get the door open or the key out of the ignition. My brother sent me a video of how to take the top off the drive column to flip a tab to get the key out. I started trying to follow the video as I got hotter and hotter in the locked car. And I waited… Eventually I realized that I actually could open the door and get cooler air by mechanically pushing the lock up on the door. DUH. And I waited… I finally got a call from someone who was trying to find me and told me to call AAA to tell them they got the place wrong. I called AAA but in the midst of it I got another call from someone who was yelling about how they didn’t know where I was. When I tried to explain how I had done what the app asked me to do, and had just answered the other call, he yelled and threatened to abandon me. I sat silently until he took a breath. Then I said calmly, “are you done now? Would you like to know where I am?” He was clearly having a worse day than I was. I shared the information as best I could and then I waited…a county truck came by and tested the battery—it clearly was the alternator. I had to sign something saying I was willing to take the risk sitting at the side of the road. Then I waited… Finally a tow truck came. We got the car loaded and he dropped me off at a grocery store in the middle of nowhere and I ordered an Uber. My conversations with my brother were extending his time before he could go into silent mode. In the meantime,as I stood outside with my purple suitcase, I had a cross-lingual chat with a grocery store worker who only spoke Spanish who liked my haircut. A young African-American man finally picked me up—He was worried that he wouldn’t find someone needing a ride in the middle of no-place after dropping off someone else. I was worried that there wouldn’t be an Uber driver within miles around. By then it was rush hour. What should have taken 20 minutes took more than 60 minutes, so we got to know one another well. My final advice for him, as he dropped me at my hotel, was to take his mother’s advice and go back to college and finish. I affirmed that his mother was always right and he should try to please her. My brother’s car arrived back at his mechanic in San Diego at the same time I arrived at my hotel.

When I checked into the hotel I asked about car rentals—Enterprise was a block away. My hosts had arranged to pick me up for my first event about 30 minutes late so I didn’t miss anything. That night, when I got back to the hotel, I reserved a car for the day after the board meeting. After the meeting, I walked to the rental agency and picked up the rental car, made my visits and drove back to San Diego. Shari and I drove my rental car to the rental agency, one block from the car mechanic, and walked over and got my brother’s car with its new alternator, and drove back to their house. Phew.

All Shall Be Well and All Manner of Thing Shall Be Well (or my mother’s paraphrase)—And This Too Shall Pass