Don’t Let an Aisle Be an Ocean

Posting a little late due to travel, but I captured a few thoughts on New Year’s Eve for myself and anyone else who cares to read them…

It’s the last day of 2022.  I’m with the fam, heading to Steamboat Springs for our first family ski trip – Senior graduation/20^th anniversary/Because we’ve-been-talking-about-it-for-years ski trip.  We’re on the second flight of the day and I have fresh inspiration for 2023.  

We’re flying Southwest, so seats are catch as catch can.  I sat between my youngest, who called dibs on the window seat, and a man who was sitting across the aisle from his entire family.  

 

But, the aisle may as well have been an ocean.  His wife, across the aisle/ocean had a kindergartner on her left (by the window), an autistic son who kept hitting her on her right, and a newly-walking, very antsy toddler on her lap.  And this man literally got his book out (Letters from the Stoics) and put his headphones on.  

 

I learned the husband’s name fairly early on, but heard it more often than he did.  I even got to help her get his attention once…After he didn’t hear her saying his name or see her waving her arms.  But, he did put the book down after awhile.  To watch a movie on his phone.  

A couple of us offered to hold the little one, and she took the lady behind me up on it, when things just got to be too much. 

 

The edge in the woman’s voice would have made my ears bleed, but my heart was already bleeding from imagining the rest of her life – when she’s not vacationing (Ha!) She was doing it by herself, just like she said (when he seemed annoyed that things weren’t being handled better over there).  I was afraid the only departure from normal was us going on a ski trip.  

 

I read and I colored, wondering what I could do without a hot poker and a good dose of courage.  I did nothing, but smile at the Mom whenever I could catch her eye, and silently loathe her beloved. 

 

I thought about writing her a little note, too.  But, LEAVE HIM! isn’t exactly in line with my beliefs about marriage.  And HANG IN THERE didn’t seem very helpful.  And ENJOY IT, IT GOES QUICKLY downright ridiculous, and unbelievably insensitive.  Perhaps the most validating, but still unwritten… I SEE YOU.  YOU ARE JUSTIFIED IN YOUR FEELINGS. P.S. I’m going to be a marriage and family therapist in two years.  Call me if you can’t find anyone between now and then.

Well over halfway into the 2-hour flight, he came around, and offered to cross the aisle to help.  She eagerly accepted.  

Hallelujah.  Lord, have mercy.  Maybe I should have given him the benefit of the doubt.  He certainly provided a lot of timely inspiration for 2023…

 

Take your headphones off.  Hold a kid.  Make eye contact.  Be a partner and a friend.  Anticipate the needs of people you love.  Don’t make them beg or plead.  Look at your spouse and your kids- Many are wishing they could do that very thing.  If you can’t do your share, be appreciative of the one(s) who are.  Express your gratitude, and don’t let an aisle be an ocean.   

In the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, Don’t “miss your appointment with life.” Happy New Year!  Thank you for flying with Southwest.  

 

One Night in an Inconvenient Hotel

 Writing from a broken chair in Guthrie, OK.  Trying to wake up and waiting for a storm to clear.  Looking at the only thing to love here…A neon heart and an ice cream cone floating in the sky.

I dried off with a hand towel and the A/C is broken, just like my chair.  But, after trying two different rooms and opening the door to two someone-has-just-been-here-and-the-sheets-are-still-twisted-kind-of-dirty at my first stop, I’m lingering in my upgrade.  

Completely grossed-out by the old smoke-and-chlorine greeting in the lobby, the “great room” where I was to enjoy my complimentary breakfast from 6:30-9:30, and the generational fingerprints covering the elevator, I wondered what my expectations should be.  Mostly, I just wanted a place to sleep… 

But, our brothers and sisters in the Ukraine keep coming to mind, and I ask myself how dare I experiment with any feelings but gratitude.  

They’re right, of course. 

So, thank you, Guthrie, Oklahoma.  If I don’t see you again, take care.  I will always remember you fondly as the place where I asked for my money back for the first time in my 44 years of life.  And thank you for the reminder that I love that little saintly saying…

When we get to heaven and look back on our earthly lives, it will seem like but one night in an inconvenient hotel. 

Road Trip

We are on the road to Kansas to visit family.  We haven’t made his trip in a year.  Not together, anyway.  Normally, we would have been twice since the last time - Fourth of July and Thanksgiving.  But, COVID... and fear that gathering could kill our most vulnerable.  So, please don’t come home in July.  Or September.  Or November.

Vaccinations have been had and a year is well, way too long.  

So, here we are. On I-35.  Party of five.  A party of five, which now consists of four legal drivers (with parents in the car) and a baby who turns twelve tomorrow.  A new permit and an old permit-almost-license, as soon as the driving test is knocked out, because why would you be able to do it the same day as the written portion?

Time is picking up speed.  Even literally.  Today is the first day of Daylight Savings Time.  “Spring Forward’.  Yep, that’s what we’re doin’.  The clocks still say the old time, but we know the truth.  

These trips are going to be harder to come by.  We’re in the “sweet spot”, as a dear friend with a bigger and older family than mine likes to remind me.  Drivers and employees have more responsibilities and no paid time off.  Boys become men (like they should), and their Mom trades in her minivan for a truck because she was never the minivan type, anyway.  

I don’t know where they are going or what they will be, but I do know they won’t be home or all sprawled out in this minivan, like they are Right Now.  

Say cheese.