Two days ago I set out on a journey, perhaps even an expedition. I forgot to bring my camera cable so I can’t start posting my travelogue. Unless…Unless I tell about something that happened before I started taking pictures, something that may not be related to anything else I’ve been doing.
I was not an hour from home, driving through a little rain, twisting and turning on a road that winds along the slopes of a volcanic mountain. Coming around a curve, I spied at a turnout a gallon jar that I am fairly certain was full of maraschino cherries. It was just sitting there neatly upright in the middle of the wide flat area of dirt. Of course my resourceful self said, “Stop! Someone has left a treasure for you.”
That thought was just a flash. There was no way to safely stop, and anyway, I certainly don’t need those confections, even if I could know they weren’t poisoned or something. But for miles and hours I kept returning to those red cherries in my mind, and wondering how their random appearance might eventually tie in to this whole trip. I normally like to see how everything does connect.
It might not be random; I looked that word up, because I rarely use it. Random means “occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern.” I don’t know the story behind the event. Did someone have a reason for stopping and dropping off the jar? If it had simply fallen out of a vehicle it couldn’t have landed upright. I can be reasonably confident that there is no pattern to be discovered. Unfortunately my mind doesn’t naturally imagine stories to explain odd occurrences, so I can’t make use of this sighting in that creative way. At this point it doesn’t look like I will be able to fit an out-of-place jug of cherries into the flow of my journey. But there it was.
