Sideways

Well, I was going to blog this morning about The Backpack. I was going to wax eloquent about the wonders of this piece of equipment, which allows you to carry any number of items around with you, whether you need them or not. And I was going to illustrate it with this lovely photo of my backpack, with Steve peeking out of it (he does that; he likes to travel. Our last trip was going camping).

But, oh infernal frustration, the photo refused, absolutely refused, to be flipped upright. I flipped it one way, and it stayed sideways. I flipped it the other way, and it did a double-flip to lie sideways the other way. Needless to say, eventually I pretty much flipped myself. (Yes, I'm afraid I said a bad word or two. Actually, I'm not afraid- I quite courageously admit it: I said bad words. And it did help relieve my feelings; I highly recommend it.)

So then I got to thinking: I've got this picture. It won't go the way I want it to, to illustrate what I want to say. So perhaps I need to say something different? Because that's often the way it is in life. We think things are one way, but then they end up permanently flipped sideways. And we can rant and rave, say bad words, and bash our heads against the computer for an hour, leaving greasy-forehead prints on the screen, but it's not going to make things flip the way we think they should be. Or we can just take them in their sideways-flipped state, and work with them as they are.

It's not going to be the same. And it's not second-best, either. You're not going to get an eloquent article about backpacks with a sideways-flipped picture; it just doesn't cut it. But perhaps you can get some thoughts about the whole issue of things being flipped sideways when you don't want them that way. About things being entirely different than you had expected them to be. There is an excellent article out there called "Welcome to Holland", by Emily Perl Kingsley, which expresses it better than I could- or perhaps just differently.

Because different is good. It's not better, it's not worse- it's just different.

And even so: if, today, you prefer to think about backpacks, instead of differentness, you can just tip your head sideways, and look at the photo that way. Steve won't mind.