(written in the air on July 3, 2014)
As this blog is being written, I am on a plane to Warsaw that took off an hour later than expected in a seat that was not on my ticket, as an old babushka informed me that hers was now the aisle and mine was now the middle seat. This, after beginning the journey 21 hours ago with at least 30 more to go.
The morning, beginning at midnight on Wednesday journeying to the airport to check in for a 5am flight was not what one might call smooth. Our checked baggage was mistakenly unpaid for in advance and so (after no sleep) we were left with little to no time to catch our first flight. And it ended up being one of the more hilarious mornings I’ve had in a long time.
Partly out of delirium, partly out of no strength to stress, and partly out of no semblance of control over the situation, our team of 6 girls stumbled our way through the morning with all the grace of a drunken sailor.
It started in the security line. The woman running the show was little, but she wore an unchanging look of death and her sigh was one of the fire of a thousand TSA patdowns. She stood, unwelcoming, under some metallic arches, next to the newfangled check-your-body-for-weapons-and-drugs-machine. I decided to head for the arches. As I walked through with my hands held up in surrender, she didn’t look me in the eye. I stood for a second, then decided that not making eye contact was just her signal that she deemed me worthy of air travel that day. Next was my teammate who walked forward in such a bold confidence that it could inspire a nation to battle. This time it was she who withheld eye contact from Madame McFeely and walked straight into the modern machinery instead. She assumed the position (semi squat, arms in the air like you just don’t care) and held it. And held it. And continued to hold it. It wasn’t until the 10th angry proclamation from Madame M. and the vigorous knockings by me onto the machine so that her life might be spared by this dragon of safety that she realized her confidence was in vain.
As she was finally shuffled through the arches and to the other side with all of the other survivors, tears were streaming down both our faces and our legs. I laughed at her rookie travel mistake.
Next came the airport subway to our next terminal. Being somewhat of an ATL airport expert, I confidently lead the way. We found the subway and I strutted in with a familiar swagger. Time was short, but we totally knew what we were doing.
But then came the red flashing lights. Those were new. “Looks like something could be wrong. Don’t worry about it, I totally got it- I’ll check it out.” I was assuring my team (it’s good to be affirming in these situations). So I stepped off of the train, followed by one of my teammates, and turned around just in time to see the subway doors closing and the rest of my team laughing hysterically as they were whisked off to our gate.
When we all met up and walked to the boarding area, it was apparent that, even though we more than likely had the most mishaps, we definitely won the award for most fun had that morning (definitely not a knock on all of the other amazing teams on Esquad, just an observation from someone with a totally biased perspective under the influence of a night with zero sleep).
And it got me thinking. The morning could have gone very differently. With the baggage mistake, the extreme time crunch, and the totally preventable travel kerfuffles, we could have been swimming in stress and frustration. We could have sniped, we could have sweat, we could have gathered reasons for resentment. But we knew we had no control over the situation and so we let it come as it came and were able to actually enjoy the whole dang debacle.
With babushka sleeping soundly on my shoulder, thoroughly lavishing the legroom an aisle seat provides, I pondered something. What if we all lived our entire lives like today’s travel day? Because, in reality, we don’t have ultimate control in our lives. Sure we make plans and set goals; we show up early to the airport of life with all of our decisions properly sized and in plastic bags, carefully calculating the weight of our baggage and the amount of drama in our carry-on. But flights get cancelled, gate agents mess up our reservations, and sometimes the TSA agents of circumstance keep patting us down and we miss our flight entirely.
Control is an illusion. Life is an adventure. And, luckily, the Travel Agent in charge of this whole thing loves us more than we could imagine and knows our needs for our destinations before we even begin to attempt to make an itinerary. So we can fret ourselves to death when our plans get interrupted, or we can learn to rest in the Travel Agent who will always get us where we need to go- no matter how many routes it takes for us the get there. And we may, if our eyes are open to it, even get the opportunity to laugh hysterically at ourselves with our friends over our mistaken certainties.
Thank you so much, everyone, for your prayers and support! This is officially the first blog “from the field” and I hope to update it on a regular basis. To get notification by email when a new blog is posted, type your email address into the “subscribe” section of the tab on the left hand side of this blog. In about 30 (or maybe a million) hours, my team and I should be at our first ministry site in Gjakova, Kosovo! Thanks again for making this a reality and believing in the process…this adventure has only just begun!
Love,
