Every morning when I go to the gym, I pass a house on the corner with a woman sweeping up leaves and flowers that have fallen from her trees onto the street beside her fence. After seeing this each time, I realized this is a daily chore for her. Every day she gets up at 5 AM and sweeps, only to have to do it again the next morning. I don't know why, but I found a sort of amusement with this. I started to wonder why she just doesn't either leave them or simply remove the trees and plant something that doesn't "shed" so much. Perhaps because she likes the trees or doesn't mind the routine.

Then this morning, it hit me. "That woman is Sisyphus!" Her chore is never-ending. It's futile. Then I remember a scene from Party
Girl.

Mary: Do you know the story of Sisyphus?
Leo: Who?
Mary: Sisyphus. It's a myth about this guy who had to roll or push this
incredibly huge rock up this steep mountain. Every time he would get to the top
of this mountain the rock would roll down again. he would watch this and walk
back down the mountain and do it all over again. Forever.
Leo: Drag.
Mary: It's a metaphor for life, Leo. It's famous. (reading) "One must
imagine Sisyphus happy."
Leo: Bullshit! He's miserable.
Mary: He doesn't have to be. He accepts his fate.
Leo: You're telling me if you name is Syphilis and you spend your life lugging a fucking rock up a hill you wouldn't be miserable?

I know more now. I can actually see it on the map. I can point to it and say, "That's where I want to be." Now I just need to chart my course.

The volunteer I go out with on Saturday nights for street outreach is taking a leave of absence to fly home to take care of her father. I've been waiting to hear from someone to find out if someone will take over her shift or if I need to go another night. Saturday, the director of the outreach center called me to tell me he'd be taking over for her while she is gone. I was glad to hear this. I've been wanting to meet him and now I will get to know him as well. If things go well and we hit it off, perhaps we could develop a mentoring relationship so I can learn more about the inner workings of what he does.

In the meantime, I go back to The Company, rolling my giant rock up the side of a mountain only to find it has rolled down the next morning, waiting for me to start over again.

"If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track, which has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living." — Joseph Campbell