I recently threw a pair of shoes away. It was an old pair of gray and white Converse. The shoes were worn through in many spots and had taken on an orange hue to them. It made me remember how it got that orange hue from Robbins Field here, in Paso Robles where Sam played baseball and I was a coach and assistant coach. There is a particular kind of dirt on that field that stains your shoes and baseball uniforms as well.
Our 2024 Toyota Tacoma recently hit 10,000 miles. It took us about 18 months to hit that milestone, partially because we have three vehicles which split the miles and partially because we both work from home. Anyway, we hit 10,000 miles on our way home from Los Angeles recently after attending a Dodger game, our first together as a family at Dodger Stadium.
I started thinking of every mile becoming a memory, be it in those old shoes I had to throw away or in the Tacoma. My mind then went from every mile being a memory to every memory being a mile, so to speak, in our lives and minds. I don’t know, interesting thoughts.
The truck doesn’t know it carried us home from Dodger Stadium. It only knows it traveled another stretch of highway. It has the data, we have the sentiment. We remember who was in the truck, the countryside we were driving through, and the way the odometer rolled over to 10,000 somewhere on Interstate 5, heading north.
All the drives to baseball fields and mountain getaways. All the hikes in old shoes along the coast or in the mountains or on the baseball field. Those moments, the miles and the memories, are what I live for in a world filled with so much uncertainty. It’s these moments, the miles and memories, that give me some senses of purpose, fulfillment, and attachment, which I often find myself missing.
It must be these little moments that appear to anchor me to whatever this life is. All that time being on the baseball field with my son has given me memories. These yearly trips to Major League Baseball stadiums with my wife and son have given me memories. The time in those old shoes. The time in the truck racking up miles. What else should I be doing? Where else should I be? Turns out, maybe I’m right where I need to be.