Douglass Adams, my very favorite author of all time, died on this day in 2001. That’s a fast ten years, given that I remember where I was the day I heard he passed on. He’s the 17th highest ranked search on the omni-powerful Google search engine today, not bad considering Bora Bora is no. 7. I have to admit, I miss the creativity that was Douglass Adams. For those of you uninitiated folks, he wrote the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and the five books of the trilogy that went with it. My favorite of his books “The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul” is about hapless detective Dirk Gently. It involves Thor, a Coke machine and a Norse god that has lost his memory. It’s all very funny. Yes, the words “Monty Python” are related to Adams as well. Hey, I’m easy to entertain…I’m a NASCAR fan. I can watch guys drive in a circle for hours and scream my head off. 🙂
Adams had the ability to laugh about things in life that we pass by without noticing. I love that idea, and am working to manifest it in my own life. Joy while I am waiting. Waiting for? Who knows. It’s May…everything is changing and going from up to down. My job? To love beyond reason and trust that God knows what he’s doing. I was reorganizing my office earlier this month when I came across Adams’ Tea Time; as I listened to him reading, laughing, I contemplated his unique gift of joy. He saw the possibility of dreaming and didn’t consider anything impossible. I think that is what I love about his work so very much; the impossible, however improbable, has the equal chance of being reality. For instance, a relatively unknown author is beating out the new royal couple and most of Hollywood’s finest on Google today. He’d get a kick out of that. It’s all in how you believe, and that you don’t panic. We make a lot of bad decisions based on fear.
Why did I say “don’t panic?” In Hitchhikers, the best advice that humankind can get comes from the front of the guide itself. Don’t panic. It’s really biblical advice, if you want my M.Div. take on it, because you can’t add so much as a second to your life with anxiety. But there is something about situational panic that I value. When I remember back it was the panic of losing love and life that brought me to my knees; it’s only when I lose, for a frail moment, absolute faith in love that I panic again. Don’t panic. Just hold on, keep a towel handy, and remember that possibility is always faith and promise in action.
Life is not what you perceive…it’s so, so much more.
So the life lesson here is….you are able.
Capable.
Honorable.
Wanted.
Never alone.
Beloved.
Unique.
Special.
Don’t panic.
This is what I’ve wanted to say to every person that I met today, so I incorporated it in how I speak, how I look people in the eye, in listening as the day goes along…in failing to panic. Okay, so this isn’t the real article that I had planned for today, but I wanted to remember that in my lifetime, Adams has been pretty solid for me in my own long dark tea times of the soul.
I’m special, unique, intense…there is only one Alison. I am a person that is unlike any other, and so are you. Can you reach for your dreams and follow through without panicking? Everything is possible. Somewhere in the whole of space and time, there might just be a Valhalla, a Norse god with amnesia, Dirk, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Arthur Dent and a galaxy class spaceship with a probability drive. So I dare you…reach for your dreams. With your heart racing, your knees shaking, your mind racing just dive into your imagination and be all that you can believe.
It could happen.