Today is day 14 of an international trip, the first trip outside the US in 4 years! Like most of you, I stayed put during COVID. I definitely felt more trepidation about this trip than for my solo pilgrimage, B.C. (Before Covid), knowing the travel skills are a bit rusty overall.
It doesn't bring out my best side when well organized plans show even the smallest threads of unravelling. To mitigate any and I imagine (wrongly) all possible missteps, I printed out every document ahead of the trip and placed them together, in order, in a red folder. I was prepared for every contingency! Except for the ones that actually happened in real time.
"That's travel" is a familiar refrain among seasoned travelers, a kind of mantra, if you will, to repeat when you're breathless from running a mile from gate to gate with at least one unwieldy bag. In those moments no well thought out plan printed on paper in a red folder can help. The ONLY thing that will help in such situations is not oneself, but how someone else, a stranger, reacts to your plight. Several strangers at the Norwich regional airport, about the size of the St. Augustine airport near my home in Florida, showed their best side under pressure. They didn't have to help because I was late getting to the security line and we all knew it! Blame it on the last minute discovery that a tax had to be paid ahead of entering the security lane, unbeknownst to me, or, on the last minute coffee that I sat
sipping leisurely without taking note of the time. Both happened to be true and nearly caused a missed flight that would not go out again until the following day, while those prepaid tickets to the Van Gogh Museum and Concertgebeouw Orchestra in Amsterdam would have remained in the red folder, unused. Both were a longheld dream about to come true, if only I got on that plane revving its engines on the tarmac...waiting for me!
The security personnel stuck to their safety rules as they communicated the status of what was playing out inside the airport to the ground crew. My bag tripped the alarm. "Please open this," as I was asked about a possible laptop inside. "No" but, yes, a tablet was in there. Back through the scanner, again tripping the alarm. "Is there a keyboard in here?" I had repacked it from the larger checked back and forgotten about it. As I waited, the man on the other end of the walkie talkie appeared inside. "Why didn't you come through security earlier?" he asked. I started to explain, but I knew it was pointless. "You're going to miss it", he said, politely. "Is there another flight?" "Not today," he said. I thought it was over. Next thing I knew my bag was handed over and he said: "Gate 4, no I mean 3. Hurry, they're waiting for you." I ran all the way to the staircase butted up to the plane and saw a flight attendant waving me up to the door. He smiled, pointing to the passport sticking out of my bag, and said: "Welcome aboard."
Both the museum and the concert were well worth the hassle. I witnessed many times over these last two weeks people helping people in train stations, such as a solo woman helping the young mother on her own with a baby to get her luggage on and off board; in subways when I was repeatedly offered a seat by young people, and on the street when directions were given for no reason other than to help. We on the microlevel, (if not reportedly on the macro level) are kindhearted people ready to offer help to strangers. To experience this firsthand, as a stranger in strange lands, restores my faith in human kind!
Maybe you too know what I mean and have had your own experiences of either helping or being helped by someone out of kindness. I will hold on to this the next time I find myself quickly dismissing another person as "other" based on political positions. Perhaps some of those people in the airport, the train station and on the street would never agree with my viewpoint, but as strangers we saw only our mutual need for a positive outcome. I take this to heart as I go forward for the next 40 days.
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