Right Turn Only

There was an old lady who drove, she lived in a sunny white cove, 

she shopped every day, she knew the right way, 

but never a left turn she wove.

I'd heard of a woman that only made right turns. She prided herself on getting to her destinations by only straight aways and right turns. If a left was looming ahead she might go a block out of her way in order to turn right and then position herself back on that corner now set up to turn right. It was safe this way with no confrontation with traffic - even though most of her traffic was 80 year old codgers driving golf carts in a senior community.

When I think of right turns in traffic I think of going with the flow, agreeing with the crowd, following your peers, AND not finding your voice. Since turning 50 I have a bit more clarity in my life and often I'm surprised at how the choices I make are purposeful now. I can see the left choice and the right choice and I like to surprise myself by taking the left one more often than not. Don't they say taking the road less travelled makes all the difference?

I remember the early days of The Seinfeld Show when Jerry and Elaine would just blurt out their thoughts with hardly a consideration whether the truth was offensive or just humorous. It was their truth and they had to say it: whether it was Elaine fighting with the Soup Nazi or Jerry scolding Newman for rightly being a jerk. During the heyday of that show, I was stepping into the elevator at work empowered by a Seinfeld episode only to find this gorgeous 7ft man beside me. I was so taken by his generous height and his good looks that I became Elaine and blurted out....."where have you been all my life? Here I settled for a man 2 inches shorter than me." Immediately after, I wondered did I just think that or did I say that out loud? Sure enough, we both laughed and then I knew.

Left turns can lead to interesting discoveries. I took a virtual left turn by attending my first orchestra concert. This classic rock mama now loves being swept away by the strings and stirred by the drums and taken in by the horns. My culinary left turn was to lose the red sauce on my pizza and make this out of this world club turkey pizza with mayo, bacon and cheese. And who knew the left turn into the water park would become my trifecta of new left turn ideas.

There are times when traffic doesn't allow a left turn and then you have to trust that a Higher Power has made that decision for your safety and then you follow and obey. I'm a very obedient person by nature but I like to think my left turns are succeeding in making my life a bit more colorful and a bit more interesting.

There now is a lady that drives, it's left not the right that she strives,

 for the scenery ahead has changed in her head,

her momentum might change all your lives