I am sitting in the front seat of my car on the side of the highway, the car is running, the air conditioner is going full blast, Sam is asleep in the back. I know, of course, that this is one of those things you are not 'supposed' to do. But it is a little moment of quiet solitude, a chance to look through the patterns I found today, sit still, think my own thoughts, just be.

Except, of course, that Just Being in a small town is sometimes a little tricky. Because I am not just an anonymous car pulled over on the side of the freeway with strangers passing by. This road leads to a very particular place in the middle of nowhere, and most everyone who drives this way, especially at this time of year, knows me and Sam. Never do I attempt this but someone stops to check and see if we are OK (Auntie Whoozie now just slows, waits for a thumbs up, nods, and drives on).

Today, I look up to see the brake lights on my old beloved Subaru. Big Chris and his boy are making the U-turn to come back and check on me so I roll down the window and let them know I'm OK. The boy, with his bright red mohawk, looks quite concerned, and then relieved. He's such a great kid, so big, so intense, with a mind that works so fast and furious I can hardly keep up. He is maybe 12, sometimes a little awkward and hesitant, mostly barreling forward at a furious pace.

Last week he accompanied Theresa on her weekly visits to help us dig out from under the clutter of our lives and he played with Sam, pushing him around in the little red car. And it hit me that, like this nearly man sized boy, Sam is going to be a big man some day.

This realization astounds me when it happens (it has happened before). He will be big, bigger than me. He'll be big and loud and boisterous and maybe he will have a carefully glued mohawk standing on the top of his head.

You see, the thing is, that boy is so real but Sam still somehow sometimes seems like something I read in a fairytale. I guess it is that Sam and I and Husband live in a bit of a bubble out here on the edge of the world. Our lives are so quiet and easy, so peaceful and free (except for all the madness roiling around on the inside). It is a kind of fairytale we are living. It is a blessed and lovely life.

And yet sometimes I feel a frissure of fear when I think about Sam growing into a man. What if this life doesn't seem so enchanted to him? What if he wishes he lived more like other people? What if he turns out to be a freak completely incapable of socializing with other people? What if, what if, what if...

What if I am a failure? What if I can not do this? What if I am as lame at this as I have been at everything else I have ever tried?

But shhh, quiet little monkeys, I say. What if this is not about me? What if this is not about failure or success? What if we just live our lives and believe that love truly does heal all things when the heart remains open to it? What if we believe in miracles, what if we give our hearts to love, what if we stop thinking about the future and start living in this moment?

What if we Just Be, right here on this highway, no matter how many other cars drive by?