“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Maria and I both choose to live in that way,  seeing the miraculous in the common. It is a part of my writing and her art.

This is the story of how a car service ended up with our having breakfast with a reindeer.

This morning, I was scheduled to bring my new Rav 4 in for a 5,000-mile check-up; I had an appointment for 8:30 in the morning.

I had a book set out to bring with me; the dealer said it would take a little less than an hour. Maria offered to drive me – she is pressing me to stay away from other people in closed spaces now – but I insisted on going alone.

The waiting room was big and spacious, I argued, and I planned to go off in a corner to read; I didn’t want to cut into her work time. Mornings are important to both of us; we protect those hours.

Maria persisted, unusual for her.

I’ll follow you, she said.

During the pandemic, we both look for ways to get out of the farmhouse and see things in the outer world. Maybe, she said, we can have breakfast together,  find a new diner in Bennington, Vt. where we can takeout egg cheese sandwiches.

I argued for a bit – I didn’t want to disrupt her day – but relented.

Her plan sounded good, better than sitting in a car dealership for an hour. I don’t want to take advantage of her.

We always have fun together, and Maria sees the miraculous everywhere we go, one of the reasons I love her so much.

It’s infectious.

So she followed me.

The dealer said to come back in an hour. When I got into her car, she looked up diners on her Iphone, and she ordered our coffee, tea, and sandwiches from a restaurant called the Sunny Side Diner.

The Sunny Side website promised we could “start your morning on the sunny side with hearty homemade dishes, fresh coffee, and a bright, cheery atmosphere.”

The diner was as good as its word. I wasn’t allowed in – Maria is stubborn about keeping me alive – but she said the sandwiches were ready, the coffee was fresh, the staff cheerful.

We were going to eat breakfast in the car outside the diner; Maria said we needed to be careful about where I went. She remembered some kind of a fenced-in deer park in town, near the Veteran’s Home.

We decided to go there. It was a curious funky place, several acres with about a score of Reindeer, four or five males, and some females and newborns.

They were not afraid of people, and we watched them, had our breakfast with one, and walked around the fence. They were not people shy and came near to us.

I thought about the miraculous of the common.

The morning started with an appointment for a car service and ended up at a new diner we liked and will go back to and a visit with a bunch of reindeer in the middle of Bennington, Vt.

Life is what you make of it, and so is a pandemic. I’ve given up whining and complaining long ago; it just doesn’t accomplish anything. Life is, in fact, what we make of it.

The car service appointment turned out to be fun.

We had a great breakfast, a sweet time together, a visit with some reindeer. And yes, my car, the best car I have ever owned, got service. And at my desk and writing at 10 a.m.