Sometimes you gotta look up

For the longest time we've had a spill in the middle of our kitchen floor. I haven't been able to figure out what in the world I'm doing to cause this perpetual puddle in our kitchen. Is Doug spilling liquid every time he opens the fridge? Am I flinging water across the room when I load the dishwasher? Is Tanner drooling his water all over the house? I couldn't figure out why in the world our kitchen floor seemed wet ALL THE TIME.

One night, last week, I got out the mop and cleaned up the mess once again. I went to bed knowing that my kitchen was clean and tidy. If you know me well, you know this helps me sleep better at night. In the early hours of the next morning as I padded my way into the kitchen to make my morning cup of life, I stepped in a puddle of water! No man nor beast had been in that kitchen since I last cleaned up the mess so there could only be one solution. I slowly turned my head upwards and sure enough, there was a large crack in our ceiling with little water droplets coming on down. Of course, the water wasn't a spill after all, it was a slow, steady leak in our ceiling.

It occurred to me that I don't look up at my kitchen ceiling very often. Obviously. We knew that there was some water damage due to discoloration but I hadn't thought about it for a long time. Obviously. But I was sort of intrigued by the fact that so much time had gone by without my looking up. I took for granted that we were spilling something even though the mystery puddle was there on an almost constant basis. It got me thinking about the things in life we pay attention to. The directions that we look or over look. I've learned to stop and look behind me now and again when we're out walking in an especially beautiful place. The rear view is often stunning and easily missed if you simply charge ahead. Looking back gives you a new perspective on where you've been.

Perhaps looking up is a totally different thing, but it does beg us to consider how we intentionally pause to ponder what's going on around us, or behind us, or above us. I realized that I wasn't really paying attention to the water on my kitchen floor. Once I stopped to look up, I found the source.

Sometimes you gotta look up to find the source.

P.S. Fortunately we live in a building where the maintenance guys are terrific and fast. They came and cut a hole in the ceiling and discovered a leaky pipe that actually goes to the apartment above ours. So now I have two big holes in my ceiling and no more water on the floor. It was kind of painful watching them saw into my ceiling. But I'm happy now that there's no more water on the floor. They will fix the ceiling when we go on vacation. What's funny is that I rarely even see the holes, unless I intentionally look up!