“Wait!” or, The Day I found my Bravery

I suppose we all like to believe we’re brave sometimes, though we’re scared often enough.  I’m certainly afraid plenty; afraid of the dark, afraid of my shadow, afraid of strangers, afraid of plane crashes and falls and injuries.  Afraid of the unknown.

But we must all have bravery inside us somewhere.  True bravery to plow on despite those fears.  Bravery to say “no” to our doubts.  Bravery to remember we were brave once before.  Calling back on past bravery to create current bravery – yes.  It’s something I have to do now and then.  And I think back to the moment I first found my true bravery.  I remember it so well.*

I sat in the long corridor, gripping with white knuckles the bottom of the hard, plastic seat.  White from the force of my grip, white from fear.  My stomach somersaulted.  I wanted nothing more than to get up and run.  Run as fast as I could.  Run down the corridor.  Run past security.  Run out the big glass doors.  “Wait!  Wait for me!”  “Don’t leave yet, wait for me!”

What was I doing here?  Sitting on this cold, hard seat in my daddy’s old blue and red flannel with the soft quilted lining.  “Wait!  Wait for me!”  “Wait!”

Me, here, it was absurd.  I was the home girl, the one who wouldn’t even look at a college more than half an hour away.  The one who stopped by nearly once a week for four and a half years, who never missed a Christmas or an Easter or a Mothers’ Day at Grandma and Grandpa’s, who loved game nights in the kitchen and Fourth of Julys in the park, who preferred New Year’s Eve Monopoly with the family to any party.  And yet, here I was, alone in the airport – had I even ever been on a flight by myself before? – here I was, all packed and ready and about to move to Africa.  “Wait!”

I held onto the chair as much to keep myself from running than anything.  I was terrified.  Would I make it?  Would I get sick?  Would I have to eat bugs?  Would I die?  And most terrifying to me of all, would I lose all my friends?  Would their lives go on without me and change and not have room for me when I came back?

I looked down that corridor and saw myself running.  “Wait!  I changed my mind!  Let’s go home!”  “Wait!”  But I couldn’t run.  Not from this fear.  Not this time.  Everyone was too proud.  I couldn’t let them down.  I couldn’t run.

“Come on Daddy Bunny, we’ve got a world to change.”

Ok, I’m pretty sure I didn’t say that, though I probably did say something to Daddy Bunny.  Somehow, we moved towards the gate and we got on that plane.  I can’t say we never looked back, but we never ran.  And you know what, my worst fear did come true.  Few friends remain from before I left.  But, I’d do it all again.  Sometimes, we’re afraid most of things we needn’t fear.

Now, whenever I must confront a new challenge, a new unknown, a new fear, I remember that day, the day I found my bravery.  If I could get on that plane, I can face anything. …except peeing in the bush; I’ll never do that

 

* Ok, I’ve probably added details with the passage of time like I do with so many other “memories” as my mother likes to point out to me, but humor me.

Too Many Choices!

We talk about how much stress there is in our lives.  One of the main contributors to this large amount of stress is all the choices we encounter everyday.  Choices require making a decision, weighing factors, gathering information.

I loved shopping in Zambia.  Need toothpaste?  Get the only one available. Milk? Choose between Cowbell or Nido.  Want cheese?  Too bad; it’s too expensive.  The small corner stores were easy to get to and easy to navigate.  They may have only had a little of anything, but they had some of anything.  In a building the size of a hotel suite, I could purchase food, fabric, candles and even farm implements if I wanted.  In and out and no hassle.  It’s quite the opposite of our US stores filled with 100 different kinds of laundry detergent and half an aisle of toothpaste, not to mention the two aisles of soft drinks.

My adventures booking my flights for Angie’s funeral perfectly exemplify how much stress choices can induce.  On each side of the journey, I had three airports to choose from. Oakland, San Francisco San Jose and Regan, Baltimore and Dulles.  For each set, there was a preferred airport but there was more to consider.

For each airport, I had to gather information about ease and cost of transit to and from the airport.  This also differed based on what time a flight would depart or land.  For example, I would normally take BART to OAK or SFO, but if the flight leaves before 7am, that’s not an option.  San Jose (SJC) had cheaper flights, but driving there from my house can take between an hour and 3.5 hours depending on traffic.  There’s Amtrak, but then that’s another schedule, etc.  You get the idea.

Aside from weighing airports, I had to look at departure and arrival schedules for each flight.  And, as mentioned above, this could impact whether or not an airport made sense in terms of being able to get to it or from it.  That’s not even considering lack of sleep.

Then there’s the flight schedules themselves.  How many layovers?  How long are the layovers?  In which airports are the layovers?   This means also needing information about the airports, how far apart gates are, their reputations for flight delays, wi-fi and food options and such.

And of course, there’s also the factors by which airlines differentiate themselves. What’s the airline’s reputation for service and being on time? How much seat room do you get?  Where are the nickel and dime points? Etc.

Oh yeah, and cost.  That one’s so big it does the first narrowing of choices and then goes off the table.

Amenity considerations like airport wi-fi and airline reputations went out the window first.  There were just too many more important things to consider.  The cheapest flight was out of San Jose and into Baltimore. Two inconvenient airports.  After some research and math, I found that once transit costs to and from the airports where added in, the cost savings was marginal.  So I was at least able to narrow the list of choices down to my preferred airport on each side.

But, there was still all this schedule stuff.  One flight had good departure and arrival times but had 2 layovers that were both only 48 minutes.  That means leaving one flight when the other is boarding, running through airports; if the first flight is delayed at all, possibly missing the second.  Another had better layovers but went through ATL.  That airport is a nightmare. Gates are far apart, flights are often delayed.

Trying to minimize the stress associated with the flight itself, I was getting stressed with the options to the point of almost just giving up.  I called a friend who I knew would understand both the frustration of trying to find the best flight option and the need to go.  She was super helpful.  By helping me prioritize the factors that had overwhelmed me, we narrowed the list to just two or three flights where schedule was the only meaningful difference.  Now I could easily decide which non-ideal was the least worst and pick a flight.  I decided that having to get up at 3:30am was a lesser evil than having short connections, and I was set.

Then the airline nickel and dimed me – all “free” seats were gone and I had to purchase special seats on 3 of my 4 flights – so I almost had to start over, re-comparing costs.  Luckily (I guess), the extra $100 in seat fees didn’t bring any other flights into the equation.

Had any one of the flight options been the only option, I would have taken it.  But having so many different choices required a whole lot of thinking.  It’s nice to have a few choices, but when I’m faced with a whole boat load of them, I really miss Zambia.

10 years and 2000 miles later

On the 10th Anniversary, it seems obligatory to do a blog post about 9/11/01.  But my memories related to September 11th do not start that morning. 

My thoughts start two weeks before that day, when I finished reading Angles and Demons.  For those unfamiliar with the book, a very devoted Catholic stages an attack on the Church in order to revitalize the Church community and support for the church.  I remember finishing that book and thinking, “America needs something like that.”  Tired of people being ashamed of our country, of flags being uncool and patriotism being dead – and this was before I moved out to the Bay – it seemed that the last time our country had been supported by its people was World War II.  We need a cause to rally behind.  I didn’t expect us to get one, and I certainly didn’t expect it to be so dramatic.

The morning of September 11th, I was trying to sort out some credit card bills.  I called the customer service line.  The lady on the other end was all distracted.  “I’m sorry,” she said, “we just heard about the World Trade Center.”  “But that was years ok,” I thought, thinking of the parking garage bombing.  Then my roommate came rushing into the room, let out of her 8am class early.  “Did you hear?!”  “Hear what?”  She turned on the small tv atop our dressers.  Every channel, every single one, was showing the same thing, the clip of the second plane hitting.

There was lots of excitement, people running down the halls, exclaiming any news they’d gotten that others might not have yet.  Candlelight vigils on the campus’s Main Lawn.  Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” moved even those that hated country music.  American flags everywhere, not just cool again but practically required.  It was a cause to rally behind, and for most of us at my small Midwestern school, that’s all it was.

Ten years ago, I hadn’t been to New York.  I didn’t know anyone in New York.  I didn’t know anyone who would be on an international flight.  New York was like Harvard, a place that only existed on tv and in the movies.  It wasn’t until this week that I learned the plane that crashed in a Pennsylvania field was bound for SFO.  Even if I had known, it wouldn’t have mattered.  As a Midwesterner, I scorned those people on the coasts who flew from one side to the other, treating real Americans like they didn’t exist, “fly-over-country” nonsense.

Ten years later, I’ve been to New York.  I’ve seen the World Trade Center hole, and not because I went there to see it, but because it’s down the street from my friend’s dad’s office.  I know people there.  I know people who are frequently on international flights, including friends and family, and me.  I know some of the “coastal people,” heck, I’m even friends with them.  And while I still disdain the fly-over-country mentality, I don’t hate them.  Ten years later, the events are more real than they could have been to a sheltered twenty year-old.  And sadly, ten years later, the flags are mostly gone again.

I liked that patriotism; I’d like to see it back.  But I don’t expect it anytime soon.  It’s impossible to be both an apologetic and a patriot, and the loudest voices in our society are still demanding we be the first.

September 11th, 2001 may have given us a rallying cry on which to rebuild our patriotism.  But the events of the next 9 years destroyed it all again.  John Yoo said we’re safer and freer now than we were ten years ago.  He’s a good speaker, but I disagree.  When I feel trapped in my city because transportation out of it is either too long or too anxiety-filled due to the “heightened security measures” – not the risks, the measures – I do not feel safe or free.  I never feared the terrorists; I fear TSA.

They won. We have lost both our patriotism and our freedom.

Heading Home from Spring Break: a Few Loose Ends

There's a few little stories I forgot to include throughout the week (and enough events at the airport so far to write a novel).

Earring

Wednesday evening, I realized I lost an earring.  Sadly, it was one of my favorite dressed-up-nice-fairly-conservative-but-not-boring earrings.  Silver double teardrop dangles from an old friend.  Yesterday, Mr. Trizzle's putting stuff in the backseat of his car and says, "I found your earring!"  He pulls this gigantic silver hoop of the floor.  I started laughing, "that's not my earring."

Po-po

Mr. Trizzle spent a great part of the week trying to convince me to like the police.  Then, on Wednesday, an investigator came into the DA's office.  He used to be a beat cop in Oakland.  After listening to him for over half  on hour during lunch, he completely undid any progress Mr. Trizzle might have made.  In fact, he probably increased my agreement with NWA's sentiment.

I have yet to meet an honest, decent, or trustworthy officer.  You can keep trying, but you have a large mountain to climb.

The Airport

Mr. Trizzle dropped me off at BART.  The train I needed was on the platform.  The Air BART bus was waiting at the Colosseum BART station.  There was no line for check-in and only four people in front of me at security.  I was through everything in no-time.  And then things started to go downhill...

I accidentally left my boarding pass in the restroom.  Luckily, I realized it pretty quickly and went back for it.  I decided to get a green tea frappe from Starbucks to help me have energy to work on my computer during the flight.  Got my drink, got to the gate, spilled half the drink on the floor.  Splendid.  Got set-up, everything was fine, airport guy called clean-up.  Then, some lady decided to try to roll her suitcase over my power cord.  Rolled the cord (and power pack) right into the green tea/whipped cream pile, turned around, and left.  Thanks, now I have a sticky, soupy cord mess to clean-up.  Got it cleaned-up.  So far, no new issues.

While waiting for my flight, the gate loads a flight to Denver, with continuing service to Nashville.  I'm waiting for a flight to LAX to switch planes to Nashville (after an 1hr and 1/2 lay-over).  Funny how that works.

The clean-up lady just came - no more giant green and white slosh puddle.