The wife and I just got back from celebrating our wedding anniversary in Kennebunkport, Maine. We love going to Kennebunkport, but we don’t spend any real time staring at the Bush compound where W’s daddy lives. I find it kind of funny that there is an area set up along the side of the road so people can park and take a picture of George H.W. Bush’s house. It’s a nice house, but he is only there during the summer.
I have decided that I am going to get into the study of tides and oceanography, or whatever they call it, because I really need to know where the ocean goes each and every day. If you have never seen a tide come in or go out, then you are missing something pretty interesting.
Everyday around 2:30pm, the water would start rushing into the port area and fill up the port basin and the area where the little shops are. It is moving so fast you would swear that it is moving downhill. At around 7:00pm, you can see it rushing back out of the port area just as quickly. I am not an expert on ocean tides, so this little ritual fascinates me. Even if I were an expert on ocean tides, I still think that the sight of the ocean moving rapidly in opposing directions each and every day, like clockwork, would freak me out.
The great thing about places like Kennebunkport is that they force you to be patient in order to enjoy the little miracles of life. As we were driving out of New York State, two plane paths had crossed in the sky. From our vantage point, it looked like they intersected, but that was probably not the case.
As the two paths expanded and started to dissipate, they did so in such a way that it created the image of a large bird in the sky. The wife got a picture of it and it is pretty cool. They look like clouds that are completely out of place, and that is what makes it look so interesting.
We stopped at a lot of places and the wife took a lot of pictures. She is getting really good at capturing a moment. She has several pictures she took of simple ocean waves that I think are good enough to frame and sell. Then she managed to snap a picture of a perfect spider web that was enhanced by the morning dew and an ideal kiss of light from the morning sun. The funny thing about that picture is that she hates spiders, but she hung in there long enough to get a great picture.
I am always a “big event” kind of guy. I won’t get my phone out to take a picture unless it is something really spectacular. But, on our trip, my wife taught me the value of paying attention to the very details that make up our life.
The whole idea of her ability to see the monumental events in common occurrences struck a chord with me as I was looking the pictures over this morning. It occurred to me that, right up until our trip to Kennebunkport, my wife was fully prepared to enjoy the next phase of our life together, and I was not.
Someone once told me that if you pay attention to your wife, then you can never go wrong. Oh, wait a minute; it was my wife who told me that. But she is right. I am so caught up in the big picture changes that are happening to both of us that I was not prepared to take in the details.
A simple wave rolling in over the rocks is significant because we don’t get the chance to see ocean waves every day. Maybe she has been trying to teach me about the details in life all along and I never really paid attention. How ironic is that?
I still have a ton of things I need to do to start achieving my professional goals for the next few years. I have stories to write and products to sell. But I get it now about the importance of the details in life.
As I get older, it becomes even more important that I not let the details slip by me. I am not going to get many more chances to transition to a next phase in my life, so I better pay closer attention to my wife and make sure that I savor the details along with conquering the big picture challenges. In the end, it is all an important part of our life together and the future of our growing family.
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