A Magical Mystery Ride

As I sat along the rocky coast of Maine this morning and took a cold plunge into the icy Atlantic, I was surprised by a feeling I hadn’t experienced in fifteen years.

The last time I stood in these waters was when I scattered my grandmother Ruth’s ashes into this same sea.

The water was just as cold. The rocks just as steady. The ocean just as alive.

Every summer when I was growing up, Ruth would drive me from Massachusetts to Maine on what she called our Magical Mystery Rides. We’d rent a little cottage near the beach. She would sleep in a tent on the porch with her teddy bear, T.R., because she wanted to hear the waves more clearly, feel the ocean breeze on her face, and wake to the moon and stars above her.

That was Ruth.

She drove a Volkswagen Beetle she’d painted with colorful handprints and footprints, complete with a Model T horn that announced her arrival with a glorious “Ahooooga!”

Every outing with her felt like a parade on the way to a treasure hunt.

Sometimes those adventures led us to the coast of Maine.

Other times they led us down forgotten back roads where we’d discover an old cemetery, a tiny antique shop, a hidden beach, a farm stand, an eagle’s nest, or some curious roadside wonder that somehow felt like it had been waiting just for us.

Looking back, I realize the remarkable thing wasn’t where she took me.

It was how she looked at the world.

She was teaching me what was worth noticing.

What was worth pulling off the side of the road for.

What was worth celebrating.

She wasn’t trying to tell me what to think.

She was quietly teaching me where to place my attention.

Ruth expected beauty.

She expected delight.

She expected that if we wandered long enough, we’d find something worth stopping for.

As adults, we often think we’re choosing the people we spend time with simply because we enjoy their company.

But we’re choosing something else, too.

We’re choosing the lenses through which we’ll begin to see the world.

A grandparent.

A partner.

A dear friend.

A mentor.

A child.

Sometimes even a stranger we’ll never see again.

They don’t simply share experiences with us.

They quietly shape what we begin to notice.

Spend enough time with someone who complains, and eventually you’ll notice more reasons to complain.

Spend enough time with someone who believes people can’t be trusted, and suspicion begins to feel like wisdom.

Spend enough time with someone who notices beauty, possibility, kindness, and tiny everyday miracles…

…and almost without realizing it, your own eyes begin to change.

Because ways of seeing are contagious.

Perhaps that’s one of the greatest gifts we can offer one another.

Not answers.

Not certainty.

But better questions.

An invitation to pause.

To wonder.

To notice what has been there all along.

I’ve come to believe that’s true whether we’re walking with someone we love, sitting beside a friend over coffee or tea, exploring a deck of conversation cards, or in a coaching conversation.

The best companions don’t tell us what to see.

They simply stand beside us long enough, asking thoughtful questions, until we begin seeing with fresh eyes ourselves.

As I sat on the rocks this morning, I found myself asking a question that felt much bigger than this one memory.

Whose glasses am I wearing?

Do they help me notice more beauty?

More possibility?

More kindness?

More wonder?

We don’t get to choose every person who shapes us.

But we do get to choose whose ways of seeing we continue to carry.

Perhaps the greatest inheritance someone leaves us isn’t advice or possessions.

Perhaps it’s a way of noticing.

A way of expecting delight.

A way of believing there is something beautiful waiting just around the next bend, if only we’re willing to pull the car over and look.

Today, standing on the same rocky shore where I said goodbye to Ruth fifteen years ago, I realized something.

She may no longer be here beside me.

But every time I stop for an unexpected view…

Every time I pull over because a winding road promises something interesting…

Every time I choose curiosity over hurry…

The Magical Mystery Ride continues.