I am an anticipator. I anticipate…in a pretty severe way—everything. I plan things well in advance of deploying it—with, for example—Thanksgiving dinner being made from the middle of October to the actual day of Thanksgiving. I will buy an early turkey just to make the basis (stock) of gravy, of stuffing etc. and make it with the bones of the early bird. From that stock, I will make the gravy early—packaging and freezing in advance. I will chop all the vegetables in advance, assembling all the sides in advance and ready for butter and baking off on the holiday. I plan and plan so that on Thanksgiving, its a snap between the thawing and the baking off. Easy. I plan Christmas and birthdays the same way. I hate running late on a project or just starting minutes before it’s done. Travel is planned well in advance of the day to go—with being early, being ready for the hurdles in the airport from shoes and computers on the belt to what gets packed and what gets carried. I insist on always being beyond early at the airport because you just dont know. And that, my friends is true…you just don’t know.

This confinement and the world that is shifting off it’s axis is something that I didn’t anticipate—and cannot focus and plan because it is the unknown. Who knows where we will end up…the only thing we can do is control what is in front of us. We can try to roll with it—and just with emotional and spiritual “muscle memory” be as ready as we can be. We can also plan, instead of anticipate or even dream a little of what could happen, where the opportunities might be and how we may be living in an on and off confinement world in the near future. What does that look like? How can we turn it into an opportunity?