Lion and Magic Boy

Juggernaut: A massive inexorable force that seems to crush everything in its way.

1638, “huge wagon bearing an image of the god Krishna,” especially that at the town of Puri, drawn annually in procession in which (apocryphally) devotees allowed themselves to be crushed under its wheels in sacrifice.

Yeah, well in this case, the “massive inexorable force” is the incredible sucking airport-inertia that is created when you have a combination of Standby Travel and Canceled Flights. Which equals BlogHer Not.

And I have been crushed under its wheels in sacrifice.

Everything was going so smoothly this morning as I packed and got ready to go, which should have been a tipoff. Alerted last night that I’d have to wear something suitable for potential first-class travel (first! class! which I’ve only ever flown once in a long history of involvement with the airline industry, because I was always the one in the back with all the children and was trained to just be Grateful To Be On The Plane At All), which meant no jeans! No yoga pants! What else do I have??

I made a nice outfit of a short black linen skirt from 1997 and a linen jacket from 2001. With bare legs in white and black-and-blue. Pretty! And new black sandals with heels bought to wear tomorrow night, which I won’t be doing. And that were thankfully and surprisingly comfortable.

Can I say a word about shoes here?

I’m, evidently, not a Shoe Girl. In the winter I wear a pair of shoes I bought in about 2001. And a pair of Ugg’s bought to wear in arctic Finland in 2002. In summer, sandals from about 2004, and now, Crocs. Heels disappeared when the job-need for them did too, though I bought a pair last year for court appearances. I like shoes but they’re just not a priority. It’s all about comfort and whatever works.

So shopping for shoes to go with the dresses I won’t be wearing this week was weird. Who knew there were SO many choices? Each very similar to the next? How does one choose?

After trying on about six different pairs, I chose comfort over sparkly. Probably a good choice, but it would have been nice to have sparkly for once. When I was a kid and pored over the annual Sears Catalog I used to look at all the fancy ruffly dresses, wishing I could have one. But my dresses were always plaid. Or navy. So my current simple choices in clothes aren’t a huge surprise. But sparkly would have been nice.

The weird thing was the shoe size itself. I measure a 7.5, always have. I used to wear a 7.5. But in my search for comfort, my shoe sizes have crept up a bit. I wear probably an 8.5 in my day-to-day shoes. In a running shoe, an astounding 9.5. Ooh! Skis! But in the heeled sandals? Every pair I tried? 7.5. And the expert shoe lady, wearing a pair of flip-flops with her suit from Forever 21, so you KNOW she knows about shoes and comfort and fit and all, swore up and down that I’m a 7.5 and that they fit me better. And you know, they did.

So, there I am in my nice outfit and the shoes and all, having packed my liquids into tiny wee bottles in a clear plastic zip bag, lugging my laptop and my camera and all my cords and paraphernalia, going through security, taking off the shoes and putting them on, and then I get to the gate. Where there is a line of about 20 people waiting to talk to an agent.

I dutifully get in line and wait, because I don’t have a actual seat assignment yet. This is the beauty of non-revenue standby travel: flexibility! surprises! You never know where you’re going, or if!

So I stand in line maybe 15-20 minutes, and then I notice that the flight being displayed at the gate is not my flight. Oops. I could be in the wrong place. Damn. I get out of line and go to the other gates operated by that airline. Can’t find my flight. I look at the monitor: CANCELED.

Great. And the next flight going to Chicago is at the gate with the line. That I left my place in. That has tripled since then.

I get back in line.

After an hour, during which time I have advanced in the line perhaps a total of 8 feet toward the podium, I get out my laptop and balance it on the handle of my bag and check my emails. The other people in line probably wondered at my private chuckling to some of the comments left here, and the email exchange made by the people I am not meeting and not having drinks with right now.

Toward the end of the second hour, they decided to board the flight. People in line were freaking out; one Young Earnest Entitled Couple behind me in line was apparently from my canceled flight and still didn’t have seat assignments, yet someone somewhere promised them that they were “confirmed” and their bags were on the plane. Other people were making phone calls to make alternative arrangements.

The flight continued to board. The gate agent had already announced that it was full, so I knew I had little chance to getting on it, but I at least wanted to know where I stood, what my chances were of getting to Chicago today. So I continued to wait.

Young Earnest Entitled Couple got quite anxious when they started calling “final boarding” for the flight. The gate agent was sweating, typing furiously and printing out yards of paper and then counting things. Second Gate Agent tried to look busy but he clearly was doing absolutely nothing.

People started swarming the podium, bypassing the line protocol. Young Earnest Entitled Couple had words with one man and shamed him into subservience behind them. Five minutes later they were standing in front of me, shouting at the gate agent.

People don’t understand the power of the gate agent. The gate agent is god. The gate agent decides whether you get on a plane or not, it doesn’t matter if you have a TICKET, you insect, because if Gate Agent doesn’t like you, YOU DON’T FLY.

I kind of wanted to see Gate Agent take his anxious wrath out on Young Earnest Entitled Couple, but he didn’t, and they walked down the jet bridge and didn’t return, so either Gate Agent threw them out the door onto the tarmac or they got on the plane.

After they closed the door, which means No One Else Is Getting On This Plane No Matter What, I was finally at the head of the line. At which time Gate Agent looked up in no particular direction and announced testily that he was done. No more. Go somewhere else.

So I sat down with my laptop and something to eat and pondered my possibilities. There was I think one more, maybe two more flights left and they were both full.

And so I decided to go home. Waiting another 3 hours to not get on a flight didn’t sound like fun, and all of a sudden I was very, very tired.

On the bright side: Wi-fi in the airport! And an $8 sandwich!

But being crushed under the wheels of Krishna’s cart has given me quite a headache.

[tags] BlogHer, airports, standby travel, travel[/tags]

I mentioned before that my Vancouver trip was so…so…

See? I still can’t find words. There was so much. And I’m still processing all of it, much to the chagrin of Nathaniel, Serena, and Eric who are likely sick to their eyeballs of hearing me wax rhapsodically about the trees there, or the way the sky looked, or…or… Well.

But here’s one thing. I met someone there, a blogfriend I’ve known online since sometime late last year. I knew she lived in Vancouver and emailed her before I got there, which is totally unlike me. After all, why make an overture like that to someone I barely know when they can read all about it in my blog afterward and then say to me, “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to be here?! I would have loved to meet you!” which is completely what I usually would do.

So this day wasn’t going to work, and that day was out, and then we went to Whistler and I was sans internetto for FOUR DAYS AND DID NOT CARE ONE WHIT, and when we got back into broadbandland I phoned her and lo and behold, she had time! That day! Which turns out never happens. I mean, this woman keeps herself busy. Which is wonderful.

So I went and met Isabella at her home office and spent a delightful 90 minutes with her drinking her tea and eating I think the best cantaloupe I have ever had (did I mention that everything on my trip tasted better than usual? Why is that?) and talking about reincarnation and other spiritual stuff and simply, well, connecting. It was wonderful.

And when I left she reached into her magical medicine bag and pulled out a tiny keychain in the shape of a Buddha and gave it to me. It’s on my key ring now, and for me it’s become a symbol of everything from the trip:

Transformation
Openness
Beauty
Growth
and of course, Love.

I am still in Vancouver. Still with excellent hair.

There is so very much to say about all this, but where to start? How do I break it all down into bloggable experience, when everything is completely connected with every other part?

What I can say for sure is that I am irrevocably transformed.

Lest you think that’s a big deal, and it is but that’s beside the point, we are ALL irrevocably transformed by each and every experience. Just so you know.

Still.

And again: so much to say, yet…

And, as always, inspiration comes from unlikely places. Which means I can talk about the Cat Visitor. Out back where I am staying is a small garden, underneath the fence of which come various Visiting Cats. Zippy is the most frequent visitor, and from what I hear she likes to remove socks and take them back to her home for various nefarious cat purposes, but mostly she scoots in, rubs herself over available surfaces, shakes the bells on her collar, and leaves again. Too impatient or distractible to stay for any length of time, she comes and goes throughout the day.

Having a parttime cat has its obvious advantages.

Hey, you want to see where I was this weekend? Have a look:

And you want to see evidence of my transformation? Here you go, then:

Do I look different? I sure feel different. I wonder what it could be, exactly… any ideas?

[tags]vacation, Vancouver, British Columbia, mountains, transformation, Love[/tags]

So. Here I am in wonderful Vancouver with my excellent hair. What to do, what to do? Unable to be parted from my love, who I usually refer to as “Mac”, or sometimes, “the Mac”, I’ve been doing much of my usual posting over at Strollerderby. And obsessively checking my email every 20.4 seconds. So it’s pretty much like being at home.

With some very notable exceptions.

The other night we took a walk in the forest. And when I say “forest” I mean something that’s nothing like the creepy-woods that flourish where I live in PA, the kind of woods that continues to grow when you’re not looking and if you stood still more than a few minutes would curl a green ivy tendril around your ankle, soon to completely engulf you in its insidious greenness. The woods in PA spawn endless evil banks of poison ivy, the kind that lures seven-year-old girls with its lush greenery, causing them to them rub their faces and bodies with their poisoned hands, not knowing that soon they’ll erupt with itchiness that lasts weeks.

The forest here is nothing like that. Imagine welcoming, stately tall cypress trees framing a wide path that at night seems to disappear into magical mist, leaving you with the sense that you’re completely surrounded by the trees, until you get closer and can see that the path turns slightly. Imagine a forest in which you are certain fairies and maybe gnomes live somewhere, just around a corner maybe, the high silvery tinkling voices of the fairies calling you distantly, beckoning, inviting. Imagine a forest where the trees talk, their voices muted slightly in the stillness, but who at the same time assure you of their curiosity, their enduring flexibility, their innate sense of connection with all things living, including you.

Imagine a forest in which you are forever transformed after having walked there and exchanged atoms with the trees.

Yesterday I went for a longish walk in the neighborhood where I am staying. Not far from here is a largish park that later in the evening was pleasantly teeming with people enjoying the sun: runners circling the park on a soft bark path, a group of mixed-age men playing soccer, and another group playing cricket. Cricket? Indeed.

I walked through a neighborhood of very large and undoubtedly expensive homes, not like the charming craftsmanlike bungalows I admired closer to the park, and on into a real city street crawling with banks. When I was here before in 1995, my three-day experience was mainly limited to the city center, a forest of tall buildings and bustle like most cities. I had no idea that quiet residential neighborhoods with cricket-playing parkgoers even existed here. So I got my city experience this time too, but made use of it to check out some art galleries, oases of quiet amid the more energetic feel of the busy street.

Turning again I walked past condo buildings perched three stories high on the side of a steep hill overlooking the real city center. This street was all angles, shadows, and planes, a cacophony of interplay between light and form. At a strategically-placed vantage point I was gifted with the stunning view of downtown with a mountain backdrop, the upsurging energy of the tall buildings juxtaposed with the settled, knowing permanence of the mountains. Truly an amazing sight.

I so could live here.

[tags]vacation, travel, Vancouver, happy[/tags]

By the way, I should tell you that today I am writing from sunny Vancouver, having arrived here last night after only a “slight” (3 hour) delay connecting in Chicago. And my hair really really likes it here, in fact I have never had such excellent hair, so I’m afraid I am going to have to stay.

Can we talk about my trip? Sure, you’re a captive audience, why not?

TIP: When parking off-airport anywhere near New York, you should expect a New York Experience.

I wish someone had told me that before I stepped out of my car inside a chain-link fence next to a tiny broken-down charmingly and helpfully labeled “Office”. There were New Yorkish guys roaming around, one loading catering trays into a van. They ignored me. I looked around for Tony Soprano. Finally one New York Guy told me to park my car, which I did, and I got out my bags. Another guy stepped up and grabbed one of my bags, which had suddenly become very very important to me, something from which I was reluctant to part. I told him I had a coupon and wanted to park there (duh). He gave me a withering glance presumably usually reserved for people insulting his hair and told me, like EVERYONE ALREADY KNOWS THIS, that I should take my coupon to the office. Duh.

So I get all New York back with him and tell him that he should COMMUNICATE, that this is not OBVIOUS TO EVERYONE, and he accuses me of yelling at him. Good. So we know where we stand.

At the office, another New York Guy was sitting down, eating something out of a “to go” container. He ignored me. Then Mr. Slick called me over to the counter, and again treated me as if Everyone But You Knows How To Do This Parking Thing. I surrendered my key (my key!) and received a flimsy slip of paper in return. Which may or may not be exchanged at some later date for my key again and, presumably, the car that goes with it. I should have taken another key with me, but who knew?

Then I’m struck with the realization that Patronizing New York Guy is also my driver, which means that my life and my timely arrival at the airport are both in his hands. Great. If it wasn’t for the TSA guy also riding in the van along with his catering trays, I figured I’d end up in the river somewhere with concrete boots on.

But actually Patronizing NY Guy was quite nice, despite leaving me miles from where I needed to go in the terminal, so I figure he must be used to the New York Treatment.

So I could write about my search for an available electrical outlet for my laptop in the airport in Chicago, or about the marathon tarmac session as we sat, stranded in a thunderstorm and hours after it passed, waiting our turn to take off, or about the AMAZING beauty of the mountains seen from my 30,000-foot vantage point all contrast in dark and light, the waning sun lighting the snow on the peaks, BUT NO!

Instead I am going to write about Eric.

Why not?

Last Friday was the last day of school for Nathaniel and Serena, and yes it has dawned on me that my available bike-riding time will be severely curtailed as a result, but hey, this isn’t about ME, IS IT?? NO!

On the last day was a two-hour assembly showcasing all the work done by each grade this year. Sounds interminable, does it? I can assure you that it was touching, humorous, and illuminating.

But the best part was Eric.

I think I’ve mentioned before that Eric likes to connect with people, haven’t I? When he was very small and I wore him in a sling, he’d telepathically call people over so he could get a look at them. When he was a little bigger, last year in Colorado, it was apparent that he loved connecting. Still riding in the sling, he’d throw out his arms to certain people he picked out, asking for hugs. Once in Large Discount Chain Store That Shall Remain Nameless, he made a worker there cry. She came up to him and, thinking he was a girl, likened him to her dead niece, and all of a sudden I was standing there while a woman in a blue smock wept and hugged my son. If I hadn’t yet known about Eric’s mission in life, I knew then: he’s here to connect.

And he knows how to work a room.

A bit bored of sitting on my lap and watching the children’s performances, Eric decided to go see various people. At times, even for long stretches, I didn’t have sight of him in the crowd of parents sitting on hard metal folding chairs, intently fixated on their children so proudly singing in Spanish or reciting lengthy verse or playing flutes. But I always knew where he was. One parent or another would make eye contact with me above everyone’s head and signal wordlessly, often with just a raised eyebrow or a simple nod, that Eric was with them, down at Eric-level where I couldn’t see. He was passed around, making his way as he pleased from one parent to another. I heard that he was especially fascinated by the piano player and stood there at the keyboard while she played, transfixed. He also enjoyed the African song performed by the 8th grade and some jamming parents, and I believe would have liked getting on the stage to dance with them.

But it dawned on me that day what a true community this school is. Due to circumstance I’ve backed away from it quite a bit compared to the level of participation I had a few years ago, but the community is still just as warm and welcoming to me, to Nathaniel and Serena, and to Eric as they always were. He connected with parents last Friday that he hadn’t really met before, or who only knew him from when he was a tiny sling-carried fragile thing, yet his gifts were seen, appreciated, and embraced He loved and was loved in return.

I know this wouldn’t happen in a public school, as wonderful as many of them are. I feel lucky to have this community as a resource, even if I’m not taking full advantage of it just now. It’ll be there for me when I’m ready again to allow it to embrace me, just as it is there for Nathaniel and Serena, holding them in loving expectation, and one day for Eric as well.

[tags]travel; airports; New York; Vancouver; good hair; Waldorf education; Waldorf schools; community[/tags]

This has been a week of transition, which culminated in several days at a wonderful retreat with a lovely group of like-minded people in a tree-infested technologically-bereft commune at which my cell phone and laptop were virtually useless and I spent the first 24 hours in total withdrawal, lamenting my lack of a wireless connection.

I wish I was still there though, and I can’t wait to go back.

I found it amazingly freeing being with a group of people, only a few of whom I had met before in real life, who mostly knew me from online communication. Suddenly I could be *anybody*! How cool is that? I found myself, though, giving up worrying about who I was or how people saw me, and instead just relaxed about it all and did whatever pleased me in terms of my interactions with people. All those years of being uncomfortable hugging people, for instance, went right out the window. I could say anything about what I was feeling, and no one would look at me like I suddenly grew a new head.

I return refreshed and exhilarated, and filled with the deepest and purest love imaginable. In fact, I have so much love flowing that here’s a little bit of it here just for you:_____.

Have a wonderful day.

P.S. So, you know, a while ago I bought this camera? (thank you, Ken Rockwell.) Yeah, that’s the one. It enabled me to take some great photos, like this one, and these, and these, plus many more. So, since I’ve become a MWAC, I obviously had to take along my camera this past weekend to this momentous event to record it all for posterity with my wonderful and insightful personal portraits, right? Right?

So you wanna see the best photo I took?

Sure you do:

And all the ones of people that I was going to take and then later amaze everyone with my mad photografick skillz? I actually photographed one person. One. And a lot of wood. And some trees and flowers. Oh, and fruit. But people? No people. And the people were what it was all about.

[tags] Michael teachings, transition, change, happiness, love [/tags]

This time, my absence here hasn’t been due to extreme busyness (the explanation much of the time) or a temporary descent into internal blackness (once in awhile) or a complete and utter lack of original ideas (most of the time), no, instead I was actually away this time in body, having traveled over 1800 miles to spend a couple of days in Colorado.

My father moved there about a year ago to be closer to me and his grandchildren, and in an amazing stroke of irony is now left there almost alone since last August when we were forced by the Pennsylvania court to return to PA. During the time we were there together, however, the children got to know their grandfather more than they ever had despite four years of living concurrently in PA, a time when he’d come over about three times a year. In Colorado, he joined us weekly, every Saturday night, for whatever we were having that night and a bottle of wine. Once he brought over one of his own concoctions (the love of cooking runs strong in my family), a huge vat of chicken stew that was devoured hungrily by the children. My dad loved the interaction with Michael who challenged him, and the children who often befuddled him. He played chess with Nathaniel (who beat him, an amazing feat with a man who strives to win at absolutely everything). He was devastated when we left.

Since last year, then, it would seem that my dad hasn’t done anything with his house. Boxes remain in the livingroom still unpacked; pictures are still leaned up against the walls where they might one day hang; and aside from a large bookshelf only partly filled with the hundreds or perhaps thousands of books he owns, he’s bought no new furniture since I was last there despite the fact that he jettisoned nearly all his furniture when he moved out there from PA. True, he’s 72 now, and he’s always been rather a procrastinator (also runs in the family), but there’s more than that going on. He’s 72. And he’s not as spry as he once was. So my visit was a lot about sussing out what’s been going on with him lately since he’s had several medical procedures and may require surgery and hasn’t been able to keep the place up.

It pains me that I’m not still there in Colorado to do this and see that he’s okay. Hugely independent and proud, he would be unlikely ever to admit that he’s not. But I can see what I can see, and I’m glad I went.

Other random observations from travel:

~~I cannot adequately express how very bad the coffee is in, say, free hotel breakfasts. I am gratefully sipping my own coffee now, filled with sugar and real cream. How decadent.

~~Some people, I gather, still think that airplane travel is glamorous. Or interesting, at least. Sure it is, if you like being treated like crap, herded around like groups of unruly children or animals.

~~The Denver airport is by far my favorite, for lots of reasons. Here are two:

1. Getting off your airplane and walking seven or eight miles to the terminal, you are confronted by a small amount of confusion when attempting to locate the baggage area. You must take an escalator down but the signage is lacking somewhat to make this clear. Instead, they’ve stationed a Real Person, friendly and helpful, at the top of the escalator to tell you where you need to go based on your needs.

2. Approaching the security point they’ve stationed another Real Person armed with stacks of plastic zip-loc bags who offers them to any traveler who needs one, and who is astute (or practiced) enough to question you about things like mascara that you never realized were considered by the TSA to be liquids and therefore were technically breaking a law? rule? on your previous flight. Oops. He also hands out candy.

~~You can tell which travelers returning from Colorado had gone there for skiing. They’re the ones with white raccoon circles around their eyes. Don’t these people know about sunscreen?

~~Try not to sit next to a guy who attacks his food on the plane, consuming a “cheeseburger” (using the term loosely, but that’s what the flight attendant called it) and a salad in about 1.2 minutes, as it might cause you to lose your own appetite.

~~As soon as you fall asleep on an airplane, trying to drown out the sea of humanity surrounding you and breathing your air, the guy next to you is sure to prod your arm to get you to get up because he has to go to the bathroom.

~~Hotel desk people at economy hotels are often missing lots of teeth, giving them interesting speech patterns and a disdain for their lives. Which is understandable if you consider that the highlight of their day may be refilling the bread box at the free breakfast buffet.

Returning home is always a good thing no matter how good the trip (and this was was strange, making the contrast less striking perhaps). The cats were happy to see me despite having been well cared-for in my absence. They greeted me warmly and then proceeded to ignore me, punishing me for my thoughtlessness in leaving them. They are still not quite over it. But having cleaned the house not long before everyone left it, the children to be with The Ex and me to be away, things look pretty good around here. The grass even decided to turn green while I was away.