My mind wanders at times. Probably a lot more now than when I was younger. I used to think of that as a problem. Yet the older I get, the more I appreciate the connections I make when my focus is soft and I am wandering through the day.

Sure, I make some cool connections when I am laser focused and analyzing a problem. But they never seem to be as playful and fun as the ones I make when I am engaged in reverie, that wonder-filled state somewhere between reflection and dreaming.

Yesterday I had one of those moments over my morning coffee. My wife, Pam, was chatting about getting ready for our first grandson, who is expected in January. I had the random thought, *Construction Ahead.* My mind flashed through all the times in my life, both personally and with my horses, that I had experienced life’s equivalent of a construction zone.

Construction always starts with a vision of something new and improved.

I still remember, almost 30 years ago, dreaming up ways I could wed my passion for horses with my professional education and skills. I remember the many starts and stops, the distractions and detours along the way. Often, progress slowed to a standstill until the road ahead was cleared. Many times I was rerouted down roads that seemed so far from the path I wished to travel.

But lately I’ve noticed my “construction project” is a lot like the work on I-81 or I-95. It literally never ends. Each new piece seems to throw up roadblocks in ways and places where I was sure the work was already complete.

Nubble and I know that stretch of road well.

We were soaring along a path toward my goals. She was growing in balance and strength, our training was advancing, we had qualified for regional finals, and then she came up lame. Most of you know this part of the story. The diagnosis put an end to our competition goals, and I switched my focus to my other horse, Lil’ Joe.

Lil’ Joe is a very different horse, with very different physical and training needs. Honestly, it felt like a huge step back, a reroute onto a road I hadn’t chosen and didn’t want. But as I worked with him over the last several months, I realized that riding him demanded parts of my riding that my time with Nubble had never asked me to develop. He was refining things in me I didn’t know were unfinished.

About three weeks ago, I checked on Nubble, and she was sound, at least for light riding. And here’s the punchline: all the work I did with Lil’ Joe made me a much better rider for Nubble.

That’s the part they don’t put on the sign.

We picture construction as a straight line from *broken* to *finished*, with detours as time lost. But some of the most important work of my life has happened on the detour, on the road I never wanted, the one that felt like a step backward. You can’t see that from inside the cones. It only shows up later, when the main road reopens and you realize you crossed back onto it carrying something you could only have picked up on the way around.

I wouldn’t trade this crazy, unpredictable, sometimes chaotic process for the world, not even the stretches that were challenging, painful, and hard. And here’s what the reverie handed me over that cup of coffee: a construction zone isn’t a thing to white-knuckle through. It’s a thing to move through with soft eyes, alert to what the detour is trying to build in you.

The roadblocks and reroutes aren’t the journey interrupting itself. They *are* the journey, for me, my horses, my relationships, and, come January, for the small new traveler about to join the ride.

~ Paul

PC – Erin Gilmore Photography