Life is all about perspective

Did you have a good weekend, or a bad one? With the exception of having to face some of life’s more serious challenges, I submit that the answer is all in your perspective – consider my Saturday…

Picture it, Saint John, two thousand and eight (couldn’t resist, Estelle Getty was my favourite Golden Girl)… I slept through my alarm, therefore missing my opportunity to bring my recyclables to the redemption centre only open in the morning. I ran out of gluten free toast and so was not able to have my planned quick breakfast, delaying my trip to the beach. When we arrived at the beach (and long before that for that matter) it was blanketed in fog – some would say not the best weather for taking in a sand sculpture contest at New River Beach.

Later that afternoon we went for a trip up the St. John River in my brother-in-law’s boat to check on some waterfront property we’re considering. The water was rough, and since his boat has only two padded seats, my rear is pretty sore today. By the time we arrived at the property we had run some pretty rough water and hit some big swells, going at a good clip of course. It was at this point that we realized we’d managed to split the primary side seam of his boat from bow to stern. It was shortly after that, while limping back downriver but against the swells (more sadness for my rear), that we realized we were out of gas and had almost seized the motor. It was shortly after that that we saw the incredibly ominous fog bank slipping silently upriver towards us – did I mention that we were completely soaking wet from the rough ride?

So, at first glance we could say that’s a pretty crappy day. Or we could shift our perspective and look at it the way I’ve chosen to… I got to sleep in. Instead of boring toast I had a fantastic omelette for breakfast. Because of the fog I had the first beach experience of my life where I wasn’t uncomfortably hot and sunburned. If we hadn’t stopped to look at that property, we likely would have sunk my brother-in-law’s boat. If we hadn’t split the seam we would have been going too fast to be able to salvage the gas-deprived motor. And our return timing was just too perfect – if we’d been in any later we would have frozen in the fog, but if we’d returned any earlier we would have missed the Harding’s Point cross-dressers crash a wedding at the River Centre (I’ll explain that one in another post). All in all a very good Saturday!