A Sign from the Universe?

Photo by Nancy Wombat.

Alright, so you've seen those little colored flags used by construction companies and road workers? The ones that might indicate the location of a gas or water line to ensure that no one dig there? A friend of mine in Grad school decided it'd be part funny & part performance art to go on a road trip and plant those flags along the side of the road - as markers on his journey. He recruited me, and I did the same whenever I took a road trip. (so now if you see little red or blue flags sticking out of the ground along the highway across the U.S. - you can pretty much bet that either S.J. or I put them there).

I was remembering this rather silly folly yesterday as I was walking my dog down an alleyway and came across one of those flags just sort of sticking out of some brush behind someone's garage. It was a slightly bigger flag than the ones I've seen before, bright pink, with the word "Sketch" on it. Sketch? Really?? I have never seen anything like this. I've seen red flags with some sort of Warning printed on them (my favorite was a guy getting hit by lightning, presumably to warn of buried electric lines). I have never seen one that told me to sketch. So, I took this as a sign from the universe.

I also decided that there should be flags that say "Dance," "Create," "Giggle," etc.

Now, I would've never come across this happy little oddity had I not: A. taken the road less travelled, and B. been fully observing my surroundings (as is my duty as a Thing Finder).

Challenge: Take a different path

I challenge you to pull yourself out of your routine and take a different route to work or the grocery store this week. Experience a different part of your neighborhood, town, or city.

I remember once, when I lived in Kansas City, a friend and I were driving around Union Station (before it was renovated) & discovered that a candlemaker had a studio on the lower level (accessible only from the rear of the building) - we found damaged candles and blocks of wax in boxes near the dumpsters. We, of course, could not pass this opportunity up, so we took some home and spent the afternoon making our own crazy candles - all for the cost of exploring.