Allowing for revisions...

Today I celebrated my best friend's birthday with a visit to Hontoon Island State Park. But that wasn't the plan. When we arrived at the park, we quickly realized that we had only found the parking lot. To reach the island you have to take a ferry ride across the river. So, in line we got. As the boat approached, my eyes attached to two beautiful little girls riding toward us. I was so caught up in this and the itinerary already formed in my head of 1. get on ferry, 2. cross river, 3. arrive at park, that it didn't occur to me to step aside and let them off the boat. This reminded me of when, at the hotel, or anywhere for that matter, people waiting for an elevator crowd in front of its doors, leaving no room for the current riders to depart. In fact, many people continue to try to get on the elevator without the others getting off. I felt dumb for not moving out of their way and asked myself why I didn't move without being asked. My answer came to rest on this idea of agenda.

Every single millisecond of every day our brain is putting together, and constantly revising, our agenda. Our plan today, made weeks ago, was to revisit Blue Spring State Park, see the manatees there, and go canoeing. Well, after a 30 minute wait in line, we were turned away from the park due to overcrowding. Luckily, I had looked up a nearby park as an alternate this morning, and so our agendas instantly changed, and we headed to Hontoon Island. We expected to get there, canoe, and head back over to Blue Spring to see the manatees. Well, the winds were too high, so canoeing was out. Instead, we decided to check out their hiking trail. It was a beautiful walk through to the waterway filled with dead and dying trees. I called it the tree graveyard. We saw some armadillas and birds along the way to visit the shell mound of the indigenous indians who once called the island home 12,000 years ago, I believe it was.

After this, we hightailed it out of there top-speed in order to make it back to Blue Spring before it closed. But, when we got back to our car and called to be sure, we found Blue Spring had been closed due to loss of water. So, our once firm agenda got tweaked and retweaked several times today, resulting in not one of our three main goals being accomplished. But, did we have a great birthday celebration? Yes.

Trying to just not have an agenda is a pretty ridiculous task. Our brains, I realized today, do it without so much as our signed consent. But recognizing that it's ok when this agenda gets changed and recognizing that it will are two huge ways to release your grip on them. And, maybe if we weren't so attached to our unconscious agendas, we would be more likely to step out of the way and let others follow through on their own agendas without us running into each other.


So many agendas, so little consideration. Behold the "Shell Mound". Apparently the indians really liked escargot. Anyway, I have decided I have been depending too greatly on my Mexico shots. In fact, when I picked up my camera to take Christmas shots last week, I had to retrain myself on it for a second, it had been so long. No more. I got a new lens for Christmas, and I am ready to get back to shooting, and hopefully to more regular blogging. I miss my little blog.