By Trina Machacek
I am a rut follower. I feel comfortable in any one of a hundred ruts I follow. A rut, with its high sides and smooth bottom will always keep me moving forward. But. Yes, a tattered, rutted “but.” If I only followed ruts what would happen to my wings that are in place to fly me to places that I can only imagine? Ah, and there is the rub of the rut. The rub on the sides of my rutted life. To remain rutted, or fly. Okay, here’s the story…
Trina Machacek
Change is for shoes and shirts and sheets. Change is something we all do on some level. Automatically. Then for some reason something changes that just doesn’t sit very well. My latest change was quite small, it did however rub me the wrong way. When I sit to write these fun “Is This You?” stories, I start by centering the “Is This You?” at the top, go down two spaces and put the title. Somehow at some time an editor requested all the lines to be lined up on the left. Left, with those two lines clear over to the left margin. Got it? Clear over to the left! It just felt, well unnatural. Oh I did it. After all I am just the writer, the editor is all knowing—and has a hand on the money bag to pay me. Going all the way to the left, drug me out of my comfortable “Is This You?” spacing rut. A little thing I know, I know. But a thing just the same. Then it dawned on me. I really was in a rut. A centered rut. Coming out of my comfy well centered rut had ill effects. Each time I sat to write I kept going to the left side of the page and starting. Then time and time again the whole story just went kafooie.
It would be like if you were let’s say, baking cookies and put the flour in before the sugar. That would be so wrong. Or you were changing the oil in your truck and you took the filter off before taking the plug out. Now we all know that would just be wrong, and terribly messy. A rut is a rut is a rut. To be drug out of it? Nonsense.
There are ruts that last just a short while and some will last an entire lifetime. We, the rutted and the non-rutted seem to be quite happy in both circumstances. So why rock the boat? Because we are here to, “ROCK ON!”
I challenge you to point out a rut you are in. You have the same two cups of coffee each morning? You drive the same route and park in the same spot to work? You cut you lawn the same way—every time? You make chicken the same way? Fold your undies exactly the same way? Well welcome to the world of rut-ness.
Personally I quit writing all the way to the left. I went back to center-ville and I am quite content with my decision. But there are other ruts this chick-a-dee sloshes around down in. I will not drink a soda unless it has a full cup of ice to begin with. I do my wash on Saturday mornings. Not Sunday. Not Wednesday. Saturday. No rhyme or reason. Just Saturday.
Oh there is a change coming though. I can feel it. I have used the same brand of lemonade for many years. It makes two quarts. Well someone introduced me to these single packets. You can use them in a bottle of water. Or! I can use them in my carry around with me everywhere metal Rocky Mountain Tumber that has a lid. A lid with a hole that I put a straw in. Not just any straw. It has to be one from Jack-in-the-Box. They fit my demure pie hole just right. Where was I? Oh yeah. These little pink lemonade packets are perfect for one fill of water—with lots of ice. Yes, that is about as un-rutted as this mind can grasp.
Baby steps, my friends. Baby steps.
Trina lives in Diamond Valley, north of Eureka, Nevada. She loves to hear from readers. Email her at itybytrina@yahoo.com
