A jack knife and a prayer

Driving with purpose...

I zone out a lot when I’m driving.

The school run is so comfortingly familiar.

On the way there, we chat. (Me and my son).

About sleep, last night’s dreams, the day ahead. Sometimes a layer or two deeper.

I bundle out bags and well wishes, drop him off and carry on to my daughter’s school flicking between radio stations. She asks for Taylor Swift again but I can’t wave that magic wand. I clock my swiftie bracelet on my left wrist; e n c h a n t e d

I’ve never hooked a music maker up to our 10 year old car radio system. I think I’ll add it to my ‘to do’ list or maybe we’ll get a new car - whichever comes first.

Sometimes every channel plays talking or news so I shut the system off and ask if we should sing. I feel her frustration and then anger boil over from the back seat.

Then as we head down hill, she starts her own song and says; “don’t sing mummy.”

The loop takes about 45 minutes, longer if I grab groceries after walking my daughter from the supermarket carpark to school. Sometimes I challenge myself to shave off minutes from the monotony just for fun.

On the last leg, alone in the car, I plug in my favourite business podcast.

Some days I am enthused and excited to return home and ‘start’. Other days I feel like I’ve done a whole shift before my work day has even started.

I fall inside momentarily to feel exactly how relieved I’ll be when the day is done.

There’s a cross roads

There’s a cross roads every single day as a business owner.

I don’t book meetings in until after 9.30/10am so there is always time to decompress and decide about the day.

• What does my business need.

• What do I need?

• What do my collaborators need?

• What do my clients expect?

In this decision making time, I might write out my to do list or simply empty my head of thoughts. I might take my husband a cup of tea, I might tidy up.

The day is just starting but blink and it will be lunch time and then the clock speeds up and it’s time to go get the kids again….

When I found out I was pregnant with my son, I didn’t tell anyone other than the family I was with.

It was the Christmas holidays and Dave was working away abroad so I hadn’t told him.

I had a hire car that had many fancy buttons. It was hybrid which back then was revolutionary. I liked it but I wasn’t used to it, there was no ignition to turn, just a funny button thing. It was windy, I didn’t feel safe and had to drive three hours North to get home on motorway.

On the drive I was thinking about pulling over for a rest; split between this and getting home in time for telly and tea, I continued. A huge black raven caught my attention. In my peripheral vision on the right, something didn’t feel right.

Seconds later up ahead a lorry was in trouble, the load came unstuck from the drivers cabin, it was heading towards me. Cars behind me, cars in front, I froze, everything froze. The road was blocked and everything and everyone was too fast. The wind blew the load into the hard shoulder and it tumbled. The cabin opposite in the central reservation, I sailed through the gap that had opened in slow motion.

I saw in my mirror, someone pulled over to help.

I pulled over at the next services. I was shaking like a leaf. I still had 90 minutes to push home but I needed solace. I think about it all sometimes when it’s windy outside like today.

In that moment, I feel like there was a version of events where me and my tiny embryo of a son died me cuddled and collapsed around him.

A version where someone had to call my mum and she had to call my partner and tell him I’d passed and was pregnant with his first child. Maybe everyone feels like this in a near miss? Maybe like me, they find themselves reflecting nearly 11 years on each and every time it’s a windy day on a drive. A conscious whole body remembering.

Life is so fleeting and we are so concerned with things that don’t really matter sometimes.

I feel like in business and in our life, we often have to remind ourselves we get to choose. Yes some things will be out of our control but choice, that’s one thing that we have that is our own. Choice is the anchor to our dreams and visions.

So what do you choose for yourself today? What do you need and when you’ve taken that, what’s the work you want to do in the world?

Claire

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