Once upon a time…

…a huge red golf umbrella lived a quiet life for many years in the corner of a mailing supplies closet of a small office.

No one thought about it; no one used it. No one remembered where it came from, or whose it was, or why a mystery bank, whose logo was screenprinted on the top, had given it to someone in that office. It lived nestled between shipping tubes, a broken 13″ TV with a VHS tape inextricably lodged inside, and a Christmas wreath that had been similarly exiled into the deep nether-corners of the closet.

That umbrella represented, to me, useless crappy clutter.

I was tasked with clearing out the closet and keeping only what was essential. A big dumb red umbrella, embarrassingly large for carrying down the sidewalks in Manhattan, was not essential.

(This isn’t ONLY about looks. In Manhattan, you share sidewalks with, um, people. Walking is a primary means of getting around in the city because cars are simultaneously a luxury and inconvenience, so when the weather is ugly there’s no brief dash from the office to the car. Nope, there’s just walking through the rain. And when it rains not only is the sidewalk’s width contested territory; with so many umbrellas, vertical space is now also at a premium. New codes of etiquette govern the squeezing by, lifting over, and appropriate closings of umbrellas around you to accommodate others and their umbrellas. You get the picture.)

The big dumb umbrella clearly wouldn’t do for any commute home; hello, it was big, and dumb, and would probably poke peoples’ eyes out and I’d probably get yelled at by other angry citydwellers for being so damn inconsiderate.

I didn’t want anything to do with it. Plus it was dusty. And ick. Just ick.

Ok.

Today was kind of a crap day. Not terrible, just crappy.

I’d been cooped up for way too many hours. Alone. I’d eaten only a bagel and some potatoes all day. And the weather reports said cold, so I dutifully put on a sweater this morning, but it wasn’t cold, it was just humid and rainy and gross. And my commute involves walking a mile and a half each way with a train ride in the middle. (Yes, uphill both ways whilst fighting saber-toothed tigers with only your bare hands. Commuting to New Jersey is that bad.) Plus, I had to carry home something awkwardly bulky. None of this was at all appealing. I was grouchy.

Right before I left the office, I saw the big, stupid, clumsy, dumb red bank umbrella leaning against a desk.

And, I have to tell you, a little voice in my head said, “Oh. That makes sense.”

It was late enough in the evening that many commuters were already gone, and the sidewalks and trains weren’t going to be as crowded. And the stupid bigness meant that it would shelter me, the big bulky thing I was carrying, and my purse that sticks out from behind my left arm.

Oh. Something I loathed for its apparent uselessness suddenly transformed into exactly the thing that I needed exactly when I needed it.

Isn’t that interesting, I thought as I plodded my way back to New Jersey.

Relevance, please?

How many other times has this happened? How many times have I completely failed to understand the value of something until I was in a moment that required precisely that thing?

And ok, forget things. How easy is it to take for granted:

• Unique skills or inclinations toward a craft.
• Someone’s piece of advice that got lodged in the back of your mind and annoyed the hell out of you until one day it slid into focus.
• The sum of your experiences, totally foggy and uninterpretable until one day you are the exact recipe personified to solve a particular problem.

Picture Harry Potter’s Room of Requirement – but already with form, waiting for the structure and the need to appear.

And with that perspective, the only response that feels appropriate is humble gratitude.

So, what do you think? Have you ever taken something for granted that ended up serving you in a surprising way?