Naturally, it’s always nice to have something to celebrate.
Reflecting this month’s theme of Embracing the Unknown, sometimes it’s even better when it’s something you hadn’t foreseen at all.
In fact, my invitation arrived just a few hours after NYC’s mayor announced a ticker-tape parade for the Liberty, the WNBA champions.
Although I’ve never been a particularly huge fan of parades, my friend’s spectacular terrace, directly across from City Hall and overlooking the final moments of the parade route, would be the perfect place to observe the phenomenon.
Although more and more, I live my life by Pascal’s maxim:
“All of humanity’s problems stem from
man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone”
…during these particularly divisive times, a gathering with a purely positive focussuddenly seems important, even necessary.
The first ticker-tape parade was in 1886, celebrating the dedication of the Statue of Liberty.
Since then, they’ve been held for astronauts, presidents, and generals; the Queen of England; Winston Churchill; Charles Lindbergh; Amelia Earhart; and, of course, for local sports teams.
The Yankees have been celebrated nine times; the Mets thrice; and the Giants, once.
In fact, there have been 206 such parades over the last 138 years, and it felt like high time I should see at least one—especially given a glorious bird’s-eye viewlike ours below.
Warned that the streets would, of course, be a maze, I budgeted adequate travel time, and more importantly, enough patience for delays.
And sure enough, exiting the subway and needing to head south, instead I had to travel a few blocks north before I could cross the barricades and loop backwards.
Then, just inches from my friend’s building, I couldn’t simply cross the final 50 feet to the entrance.
Instead, I had to travel a particularly lengthy east-west city block—basically halfway toward New Jersey—before being able to cross and turn eastward back to City Hall and the parade route.
Rarely in life, with a goal so clearly in sight, am I so accepting of diversions, sowilling to reverse course and backtrack without complaint.
William Henry Davies may have written:
“What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare”
…but clearly he was NOT a New Yorker.
The great modern sage Krishnamurti asserted that “Truth is a pathless land.”
He maintained that rather than relying on society’s rules and doctrines, cultivating a direct relationship with one’s thoughts and experiences was necessary.
Or as Rumi wrote centuries before, referencing his beloved mentor Shams / the quest for the Divine:
“But don’t be satisfied with stories, how things
have gone with others. Unfold
your own myth, without complicated explanation,
so everyone will understand the passage,
We have opened you.Start walking toward Shams. Your legs will get heavy
and tired. Then comes a moment
of feeling the wings you’ve grown,
lifting.”
Speaking of flight…
What was most unexpected about the parade was that I expected it to be almost entirely observational.
Instead, it was incredibly participatory.
Rather than simply watching the parade from the 22nd floor, our hosts had purchased a few dozen rolls of crepe paper streamers—coordinated with the Liberty’s mint green and white colors—for us to toss.
Given the breeze at that altitude, the streamers didn’t merely descend.
Instead, they float in every direction, hypnotically looping up and down, spiraling this way and that, before traveling off into space.
The word is often overused, but the effect is truly magical.
Last week, the webinar I gave for the Write Anyway Summit went live.
I received lots of nice feedback and many inquiries about ways to work with meon creative projects, accountability, and coaching in general.
It seemed simplest to open a limited number of slots for short (15-minute) Discovery Sessions just this week for those interested folks.
Realizing that there may just be a few of you who’ve been reading along and are silently curious about those possibilities, I’m happy to share the link HERE, too.
Truth may be a pathless land, but that doesn’t mean it’s not easier to travel with some support along the way.
The other fascinating thing about watching the parade from above is that, while you have a superior bird’s-eye view, you miss a lot of what’s happening on the ground.
That’s why it was particularly fun to alternate between looking directly down at the parade, and occasionally stepping inside to check out the same event on TV local news coverage.
Some things can only be seen from the ground, while others can only be seen from the sky.
Alternative perspectives broaden any endeavor and are perhaps the central reason why working with a creative coach is so profoundly enriching.
It’s often the only way you can share your vision and then witness and refine its reception in real time, both tossing the streamer and then seeing where it lands.
The entire parade route spans exactly one mile and takes about an hour and a half to complete.
Lingering for a bit after the activity died down, when I descended again to the ground, I was surprised to see the streets had already returned to a more normal state.
Barricades were disassembled and, rather than taking a 7-minute detour, one could simply cross the street.
Traffic was flowing again, and it was actually quite astonishing how quickly the morning maze had evaporated into a misty memory.
All of this reminded me of Antonio Machado’s poem:
Traveler, your footprints
are the only road, nothing else.
Traveler, there is no road;
you make your own path as you walk.
As you walk, you make your own road,
and when you look back
you see the path
you will never travel again.
Traveler, there is no road;
only a ship’s wake on the sea.
As I move into new territories with my upcoming launches, this month’s theme of Embracing the Unknown will undoubtedly stay with me.
Rumi told us 800 years ago to “Unfold Our Own Myth” and Krishnamurti that “Truth is a pathless land.”
Echoing this, Machado tells us that “there is no road; you make your own path as you walk,” and then amplifies it by telling us that the path we form evaporates like “a ship’s wake on the sea.”
Indeed, Life perpetually invites us to Embrace the Unknown both at ground level and from the sky, with sudden detours often when the destination is directly in sight.
While knowing this doesn’t necessarily make the journey easy or effortless, shifting from observation to participation—especially when traveling with friends—can make it a lot more fun.
