Step in Time

In the movie Groundhog Day, there's a scene where the main character steps off of a curb into a slushy puddle, while his nerdly companion says "Watch out for that first step, it's a doooooooozy," just in the nick of late.

Well, there's a step like that right in front of my house. Another in front of our library, and at the department store, and the . . . you get the idea-- our whole dang town is "dooooooozy" trapped!

I mention this because I am fully aware of their existence, and yet, time after time, I step, Plop! Right smack into the puddle, filling my shoe with ice and my spine with chills. It's not like it's rocket science to take a little extra distance in my stride to miss out on all that fun, but time after time, I step, Plop! . . . .

You have to remember that this is me, the cold wimp. I hate being cold, and it seems like I would hate it enough to remember to watch my step the instant before instead of the instant after I step, but time after time . . . .

My son who is into extra features on DVD's, told me that they said the guy in Groundhog Day gets ten years of practice on that one day, to get it right.

As much as one day is like another, I've had a total of fifty years practice, and still I manage to muddle into puddles. It probably would take me ten years of doing just one single day, over and over, to remember before I stepped, to pass over the puddle.

So where is the twist on this that can make it a good thing? If I play Pollyanna's Glad Game, I can be glad when I feel my foot freeze, because it tells me that I'm alive. I don't have Diabetes, and I can feel my foot! I have legs to walk with and can get around. Believe me, on this side of my centruy of living, you really do reach a point of being able to be grateful for these things.

You can imagine that in some thirty years of mothering I've listened to certain Disney movies a thousand times, and besides Pollyanna, that includes Mary Poppins. (I say listen to them, because while the kiddies were watching, I was often nearby working on dishes or whatever, and only listened-- so much so, that one of my famous lines is "Hey, I've never seen this scene before!") I'm thinking if I were to take that "Spoonful of sugar," and remember to "Dance to the Music, Step in Time," more often, maybe I could remember to stretch that stride and step-- Hop! Like Dick van Dyke stepping around the ottoman, and miss that puddle!

So, for whatever it's worth, I bid you Joy in the Journey-- and hey, watch out for that first step.....