le pain/train-train quotidien

A few days late, but the sentiment rests.

I've experienced very few things more depressing than getting dressed in the dark. This daunting task was unfortunately inevitable yesterday morning, because there is no sunlight before 4:30a.m. And when you're awake at an unreasonable hour like this getting ready for the day, you really have no right to turn on a light, waking up the roommate sleeping 8 feet across the room. And so it went, the bathroom being my safe haven for the morning. This is the choice one makes however when it's necessary to be at the airport at 5:30. Early? That's a bit of an understatement. It's almost unrecognizable to those of us who don't ever look at a clock at this time of day. But it was well worth the effort, I promise. The adventures that come with a morning of travel and an afternoon with Mom well overshadow the eye-watering efforts of the first couple hours.

The first flight can not be any less interesting. I'm seated next to the same stereotypical early morning commuter: a middle-aged, mild-mannered, glasses-wearing, greying man attired in business casual dress. He doesn't speak to me once, not even a smile when I sit down in the aisle seat next to him. Some might be offended by this. It is 6a.m., mind you. And maybe this is me being a pessimist, but my intuitions tells me we probably have nothing in common. I'm famished, but offered only a beverage. "I'll have orange juice, please," I tell the flight attendant in a monotone manner, not because I'm bored (I am actually very involved in a book) but more because I am still working on my speech for the day, intonation not something I have yet mastered. "Nothing for me," says the one next to me, a man freakishly resembling Dr. Dieter Zetsche. So he does speak.

I get off the plane at Chicago O'Hare, and I'm on a mission. Yes, I do need food. The acid of the orange juice is burning. But as I'm in an airport with which I am not too familiar, I'm all paranoid about finding my gate before I let myself rest and eat.  I book it in the direction of "Gates F4-14". No, I'm not on a time limit. I have two hours until my next flight. And I'm in the right terminal. And I've just gained an hour. And I'm dangerously malnourished. Minor details. I'm not missing my flight. That McDonald's is taunting. "I'm coming back for some of that," I think to myself. I don't realize how far down F11 is though. By the time the F gates start listing off, I'm already too far from McDonald's and surrounded by other food that I'm okay to settle for unfamiliar. Realizing I'm close enough for comfort (I see my destiny in the distance), I stop at an overpriced (sorry, that's not fair: airport-priced) cafe for something fat and filling.

-Hi, says the slightly-Jamaican sounding young woman behind the counter.
-Hi, I-
-How are you?
-Oh, doing well thanks can I have the egg and cheese sandwich please?
-Okay.
-And-
-Any meat or cheese?
-Yes, ham please. A-
-No cheese? (Didn't I order an egg cheese sandwich?)
-Yes, cheese please. And-
-Okay-
-ANDAMEDIUMCOFFEETOOPLEASE!

I didn't yell at her, I just really (obviously) needed my coffee. Didn't she get that I had been awake for 4 hours without hydrogenated, highly-preserved animal products and an unnatural source of stimulation? Okay, I know it's only 7:30 in Chicago, but it's 8:30 on my watch meaning I've been up longer than you and I'm tired. And hungry. Don't you know that I wasn't even offered a handful of pretzels this morning?  Please, just let me tell you what I want.

-A coffee, okay. $8.56.

The reality of airport prices is a harsh one. She was all smiles and not rude at all, just quick. It is, after all, the big Windy City. I decide to drop my 44 cents into her tip jar. I didn’t know it was legal to tip airport employees.

I sit to enjoy a satisfyingly big egg, cheese, and ham sandwich and listen to the conversations around me.    I watch a couple of pilots joking around in front of me. After recently reading The Ethical Theory of Plane Crashes, I'm a little skeptical of flight crew. "You make me nervous," I say to them, but only in my head. "Aren't you supposed to be flight planning or something? Watching the weather? Mapping out coordinates?" "Pilots have a life," I have to remind myself. "They're allowed to eat their calories worth of 3 meals in 1 too."

The coffee is no bueno. Like diner coffee that's been sitting for too long. It doesn't help that I'm drinking out of a Styrofoam cup either, but I really do attempt to stomach it. Well, more like taste it. But it just isn't working out for the two of us. I spot a woman with a Starbucks cup, ask her with pleading eyes if she could recount to me the whereabouts of her discovery, and she points me in the direction of salvation. It's a long haul (way past the McDonald's) but I am not disappointed. After the third time of repeating my order to another women with a very strong (this time Mexican) accent behind the counter, she seems to get it. The refreshing taste of the Starbuck's iced coffee is bliss. God, I love America.

Ten minutes later, I'm sitting at my gate, in a cozily small room surrounded by windows. The sun feels so good. The coffee tastes so good. The comfort of being at my gates is so good. I have to use the ladies' room so badly. I scan the room for a bathroom sign. I see one that very closely resembles it, but remembering the last time I was confused by this look-alike, I am not fooled. I was in the Aix-en-Provence shopping outlet, searching for the restroom, following the sign to go up and down the elevator as it told me to do so. When I was almost on the brink of tears, I finally got off, stepped out, and really contemplated the sign. It's the box with 3 people inside, you know the one? The arrow with the symbol underneath was pointing me to the elevator, not the restroom. I didn't laugh then, but I do now as I remember how puzzled I was.

When I'm back in my seat, I hear a women on her phone sitting diagonally across from me. She's leaving messages for women at her church, making sure they have some sort of form in for the pastor's wife. "Is she the pastor's wife?" I wonder. I like her. She's wearing a Minnesota t-shirt, and her blond and white hair, white sneakers, and overweight jolly figure peg her as a stereotypical American. She seems really nice and chatty, not like my previous seat partner. I really am hoping that I sit next to her on the plane. Fat chance. I mean, slim chance.

It's a connection flight, so we're in another small plane, meaning we walk outside to board. I walk down the hall and out the glass door, and the air is refreshingly warm. So not like Chicago. It's windy. Very much like Chicago. A ground control employee yells in my direction, but she's still barely audible. "Cincinnati?" I nod, and she points at the only plane in front of me. I can understand how some people might be confused though. As I continue my walk towards my final flight, I get caught up for a moment. I'm in Chicago. It's so warm. I'm going home. I love this city. And I'm smiling. I can't help but smile.
I board the plane and look down the aisle. I'm only in the fourth row, so I can see my seat from here. And... wait...1-2-3-4... is that... is she... it's her. The Gopher. She's sitting in 4D. Right next to me. What a blessing. What a coincidence. No, what an act of God.

She welcomes me with a "Helloow!" as I sit down next to her. I greet her as well, and for the first couple of minutes we don't speak again. She's on the phone with someone, making sure that he/she knows she's flying into Cincinnati, not Louisville. "I'm really glad I called first," she says with a laugh when she's off the phone. I laugh too, and the 45-minute conversation begins. She tells me she's going home to see her mother who is in her last days of Alzheimer's, and I'm immediately saddened for her. I'm going home to give a prolonged "hello" to my family; she's going to Kentucky to say goodbye to her mom. But by the way she carries herself, you wouldn't know she's suffering. Her attitude is so encouraging, as well as the words of wisdom she offeres on that short flight from Chi-town to home. She is a women of God for sure. She understands my passions and wants me to express them and explore the world. "Of course, if you were my daughter, it'd be a different story," she says. I understand completely. My Mom's not too thrilled about me wanting to go abroad either. Linda (I know her name by now) is older and wiser than me, and she knows it. She tells me what's up, and what I have to understand about what my parents are thinking. But she knows my gifts come from God, and that I should use them. I thank her for her conversation and her encouragement. She says she'll be praying for me and my ventures, I tell her that her family is in my prayers. She picks up her suitcase, and hugs me with a, "Bye, honey." It's the shortest flight I've ever taken.

Maybe it was just refreshing because it wasn't the daily routine of Charleston. Maybe I was just hyper-sensitive to all that was happening around me because I was excited about going home. All the same, it was still more than interesting. More fun that I'm aloud to have, as my mom would say.