Recalculating

We got a GPS for our car, much to my chagrin. I am not a GPS girl, I much prefer the adventure of needing to find my way rather than have someone tell me which way to go. But, someone I love is that kind of person, he likes to know the directions, the way forward. So, I said, “Yeah, sure, let’s get a GPS.”  If anything, I thought, it will take the map-reading pressure off of me. No longer will I have to be the authority on when to turn right, he can simply look to the GPS.

So the GPS became part of our car trips. My daughter E named the GPS Gabriella Parmigano Satellito. I gave Gabriella at British Accent because if I was going to have someone telling me where to go, I wanted her to sound lovely and knowledgeable.

Gabriella cracks me up with her know-it all ways. Of course she always knows exactly where we are at any given time, and she always knows how to get us to the next place - and she can avoid highways. She is firm with her instructions, “Turn Left on Commonwealth Avenue.” When we screw up and miss a turn, she simply sighs, and in her British Accent, says sternly,  “Recalculating”  I can feel her eyes roll while she says it, but take comfort in the knowledge that Gabriella has never driven in Boston.

I’ve come to like Gabriella.  Things are busy, and life feels like I need to have everything together; to always know the way. I need directions, and I need to follow them, which I hate because I’ve always loved to get lost, to lose my way and then find it again. It’s that discovery that makes life worthwhile for me. But right now, being on time takes priority over discovery, so I use Gabriella.

Funny, though, as follow Gabriella’s directions, I find she is the one who is giving me a renewed way of looking at the world, or at least my day.

I was winding my way around a rotary, or for those outside of Massachusetts, a roundabout, and Gabriella was instructing me to take my sixth right. I lost count and ended up making a few trips around the rotary.  Gabriella was in a constant state of readjustment. She kept calling out “Recalculating recalculating recalculating recalculating”

Me, too Gabriella, me too.

With life so full, it’s easy to feel as though I am not getting it right, that some one is going without, or something isn’t getting done in a way that feels perfect. I feel a bit overwhelmed by it all and then the overwhelmed feeling takes over. But now, I take my cue from Gabriella.  When I start to feel like I am not enough, I take a deep breath and chant, “Recalculating, recalculating, recalculating.” When I recalculate,  I come out from under the bundle of anxiety that I have buried myself in. I start to see things a bit clearer. I can understand myself, this life, in refreshed way. I get a sense of what is important and what matters. The direction forward.

Thanks, Gabriella.