Meditation paid off in an unusual dividend today.

It helped me obey traffic signs, thereby avoiding a ticket I would surely have gotten on another day.

Unable to get on the Internet, I meditated for nearly 30 minutes, feeling refreshed and empty of all anxiety. I then went back to the computer. It was slow as usual. Took long minutes to pull up the internet page.

Instead of losing patience, though, I simply let go of the “haste” to get here. You would think there’d be no stress in simply “dialing up” a forum to contact the outside world. I mean, how much bother is it to hit a couple of keys and move the mouse? But, I make my daily stress by creating schedules, and determining how long each chore and activity should take.

Empty litter box, pour orange juice for kid, take meds, mix seed and leftovers for chickens, pacify cat with a  snack and dry food, untangle bell parakeet tangled, choose flavor and microwave breakfast tea. Feed and water rabbit, give seeds to outside wild birds, and dish out food to the chickens and rooster.

Whew! Now, I can meditate. Not for long. Gotta check my e-mail. Trying to get a flag from another country on my blog. Gotta see comments, replies from other posts.

But today, speed did not matter. I was calm and relaxed as I waited — patiently! — for a new “page” to appear on the computer monitor. Got an e-mail from one of my best friends here in real-time (real space?) Oleg, who came to USA from Ukraine more than a dozen years ago. Helped me get two cars from his Ukrainian connection in Bucks County, just outside of Philly.

“We gotta get someone from Ukraine to write to Contoveros” I e-mailed him, explaining how to get his country’s flag on my intro page here. I plan to categorize this post with “Ukraine” in hopes of finding some meditating, Buddha-leaning, lapsed Catholic to pick up on!

I was  s  l  o  w  e  d  down. Under no pressure to complete any chores, even though the clock told me I only had 15 minutes left to get to my exercise class.

No rush. Got in car and drove off. Did not care if I’d be late for water aerobics. I felt I was living in Quantum Physics time, that is, almost “timeless,” or along a line of time that was far greater and longer than I could ever imagine. There was no reason in the universe for me to hurry. Enjoy this ride, Michael, my boy.

And so I did, noticing first how my shoulders “slumped” down. No, that would indicate a negative. The shoulders actually “relaxed” as all tightness left. Next, I the furrow of my forehead disappeared. It felt flat up there. My eyes relaxed, at least the corners of eyes came to a rest.

Driving up Barren Hill Road, (a path used by Gen. Lafayette during the American Revolutionary War just outside Conshohocken PA) I took in the trees and falling leaves. Noticed the car in front and behind, and casually made my way to a stop sign, where I came to a complete stop to view vehicles on the roads to my right and my left. I normally don’t do this here. I “bump and run,”  come to what I call a “Hollywood” stop (the “appearance” of stop)  and go without really stopping.

This time, I saw a vehicle parked to my right slightly further up the road, some 15 feet away from the stop sign. It was a cop car. A cop car with a cop inside. A cop waiting for someone to “blow” that stop sign like I usually do.

Today, thanks to my meditation, I avoided a brush with the law and really enjoyed each moment of this path that was taken.