RACE CAR DRIVING

       Mario Andretti, the preeminent race car driver of his era, once remarked that, “If everything seems under control, you're probably not moving fast enough.”
       Well, as with race car driving, so as with love, too much control is bound to slow us down, if not rob us of a potentially life-transforming victory.  
       In “Cowboy and Indian”, Billy, feeling he's utterly out of control, desperately tries to maneuver himself back into feeling he's still in control to dismal effect while Mira, coping with another kind of chaos, becomes increasingly risk-adverse in her choices, hoping to gain a little control by playing it safe.
       To be sure, much of life is necessarily about trying to control what we can, defend as much as we can and anticipate everything we can – all so that we will have as much control as possible over the uncertainties and potential dangers of our worlds.
       And that is perhaps why we need love so much, and why, when it comes knocking, it is such a gift -- for its capacity to coax us out onto ledges, or to draw us from our hidden caves, or from behind our moats and high walls is often the only counterpoint, the only antidote to what we would otherwise dare to do.
       In calling on us, even compelling our unwilling attentions, it forces to leave behind our safe houses and cemented beliefs.
       And to the point we are willing to heed its call, to accept the invitation, to even welcome love’s overtures do we have a chance to discover a little of the mystery that lies out there in the stars, far beyond and better than any barrier we could hope to raise or sustain.
       Which is to say...when our instincts for self-preservation soften and widen to embrace another or others, there is where love – and life – begin.
       Haven't you found it so?

Until next time,

With My Best,

Darryl