Last Saturday, my wife and I took a day trip to Bodega Bay, a fishing village an hour north of San Francisco. After a short hike in the morning, we decided to visit the Charles Schultz Museum, which was thirty minutes away.
As we drove toward Petaluma, California, we passed a quaint town called Sebastopol in Sonoma County. We saw a big yellow sign for an outdoor market when we approached a red light at an intersection downtown.
“We should come back next week for this!” Youali said.
The traffic light turned green. The car accelerated. After two blocks had passed, I said, “Why don’t we check out the market today? We are already here. We still have time for the museum after.”
She agreed. We made a U-turn.
The Barlow Market turned out to be fun. The market had cheese shops, wine stores, and live music. We ate homemade food, bought groceries from the market, and appreciated the craftwork for sale (a guy was selling sweaters made of seaweed?!).
What struck me the most, however, was an information sign. The market was open only on the first weekend of each month. Had we returned the following week, we would be disappointed.
This experience reminded me of my trip to Yellowstone National Park in 2011 with my parents. On a drive to a hiking trail, we stumbled upon a stunning lake along the main highway.
It was a beautiful sunny morning with blue skies and fluffy clouds. The water on the lake was perfectly still, reflecting the snow-capped mountains in the back. We pulled over, enjoyed the view, and snapped a few photos, but I urged my parents to wrap up so we could hit the trail soon.
“We can come back later for more pictures,” I said.
The weather remained spectacular throughout our hike, but it took a turn and started drizzling when we finished. As we headed back to the hotel, the sky became progressively gray. The wind was howling.
My mother looked out the window and pointed at where we were photographing that morning. I was stunned: I couldn’t recognize it at all. The calm lake surface five hours earlier was now dark and tumultuous. The reflections were gone, replaced by churning waves.
When Youali and I married in 2018, a priest named Fr. George Fitzgerald presided at our wedding. I had known George for a year, and we had great conversations. I had often wanted to invite him to lunch, but I never got around to it. A few months after our wedding, George went on a trip to—of all the possible places—Yellowstone. He got sick on his trip and suffered pneumonia. He was in the ICU for a few weeks and died shortly after.
George must have celebrated dozens of weddings; little did I know we would be his last.
Granted, whether we spent our afternoon last weekend in Sebastopol or Petaluma hardly mattered. However, it reminded me of a choice I must confront daily: Do I seize the opportunity now, or do I wait?
It is tempting to assume the exact condition will remain in the future.
It may be true. It may not.