Today, my brother and I were tooling on down the highway. I was driving.  East on I-70.  I needed to scooch over to make my way to I-75.  And so I began.

My brother said, in a very calm, but stern voice….  “ Polly, there’s someone right beside us.”  Now…. with all that has been going on lately, I thought maybe he was channeling our Dad… or maybe a Grandparent….  right there, IN the car.  He said it again… this time with more emphasis.   “There is someone RIGHT beside us!  Right beside us.”

Well.  Again.  I’m thinking… my bro is starting to sound like the little kid from The Sixth Sense.  So I start looking at the seats in my car, to see if I could see what he was seeing.  And then I caught a glimpse out the back window.  HOLY CRAP! THERE’S SOMEBODY RIGHT BESIDE US…. IN THE NEXT LANE.

I corrected, and it was all fine and good, except for the birds that were flying from inside the other car.  Either that… or they were telling my  that I was #1 with their middle fingers.

At any rate…. once my Bro & I shared what the other was doing and thinking… we laughed and laughed and laughed.  I almost peed I laughed so hard.  And we all know… peeing and driving is not a good thing.

But, in that moment when all of that happened with the lane-switching … I could not understand the obvious.

Some times, it just isn’t so easy to see the obvious.  Like speaking into your phone when someone calls you…. or trying to pull a door open, when the sign on it clearly says push.

The obvious.  That which is easily perceived or understood; clear, self-evident.  The apparent.

And all of THAT reminds me of another old story… a Zen Parable, if you will.

One day a young little Buddhist dude on his big journey home.  So the little guy came to the banks of a wide river.   Staring hopelessly at the great obstacle in front of him…..  he pondered for hours and hours….. on just how to cross such a wide barrier.

Just as he was about to give up his pursuit to continue his journey he saw a great teacher on the other side of the river.  The young Buddhist yelled over to the teacher, “Oh wise one, can you tell me how to get to the other side of this river”?
The teacher pondered for a moment, looked up and down the river and yelled back, “My son, you are on the other side”.

And there you have it.

Obviously.

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough” – Albert Einstein