"If you see a faded sign by the side of the road..."

I will begin by making my Big Announcement for this week:

I GOT A NEW PHONE!

Like, finally. Like, it's about damn time. 

My old crap phone has been the subject of many discussions and much laughter among my friends, and the subject of some frustration and cussing on my part for the past six months or so. The thing really hardly functioned as a phone, let alone doing anything else these supposedly-smart things are supposed to do.

So, I finally had an upgrade available and so you better believe that I was all over it. With fervor, baby. Send me the iPhone and do it quickly. 

The happiness of owning a phone that actually functions is quite profound. I had forgotten what it was like to have things like Facebook and Twitter actually, you know, work on my phone. I had forgotten what it was like to punch a button on the screen and have the phone call actually, you know, end. Craziness, I tell you.

Imagine my joy at being able to load apps onto the phone that don't make it freeze up or make the battery fizzle out. Imagine my joy at thinking of ways to integrate this new little thing into my life, my routines, my ministry, and - now - even my workouts. SUCH GREAT REJOICING.

I ended up settling on an app that lets me program in different routes and then helps me follow them (remember - still learning my way around some of these places!). Using the computer, I quickly created six or seven different routes based on distances, and when I checked my phone - there they were! When I want to go for a walk/run, I hit "START," a voice confirms that I'm starting, my MOVE! playlist starts, and off I go!

I tried it for the first time tonight. I've had a long day. I mean - long. Fabulous and filled with stuff I loved, but long. How fantastic to be driving home, thinking, "Oh, good! I'll be home in time for a good walk around the neighborhood!" What a change from, "Oh, good! I'll be home in time for...[insert TV re-runs here]!" And because the phone still has that novelty thing going for it, I was excited to try out this new app along with my walk.

The playlist was also a new one for me: newly-set-up this week, not broken in yet at all. I had found lots of good, upbeat music for my playlist and it did, in fact, propel me. 

Until...ugh...I hit a point...

It's hot. It's humid. My leg is starting to tighten up. The mosquitoes are biting. Ugh.

I kept going. And at one point, when I thought I might just fall over, a new song started, a song that instantly made me smile because it took me so. far. back. Like - to LP's, my friends. Because, I did, indeed, at one point, have a long-play record of the B-52's singing "Love Shack."

The song is really quite hilarious. It makes sense and doesn't all at the same time. And there I was, walking along through suburbia, trying not to sing at the top of my lungs, smiling like some crazy person because I remember so many times of belting this song out at the top of my lungs in my room. At school dances. Later, at wedding receptions of friends. 

It lifted me. It seems silly, I realize, to say that about any song from the 1980's. But that song was followed by "Money for Nothing" by the Dire Straits, and I flashed even further back, to the genesis of MTV, the beginning of cable television. And those memories took me all the way home, to my back porch, where I stretched a bit before heading inside.

That's what I'm learning in all this, I guess. Motivation comes from one place, but also a thousand places. It comes from inside, but also a thousand outside places. It comes from my own spirit, pushing me forward, but also from great music, fun memories, supportive friends and family, a helpful phone, and a thousand other places. 

"If you see a faded sign by the side of the road," there I'll be, walking past it, trying not to sing "Love Shack" at the top of my lungs. And smiling like a crazy person.