When I get there
The closest I ever come to the mind-freedom of meditation is during travel. While Sita Dulip’s Method comes highly recommended, I have never tried it; I don’t know that I even need it. I’ve gotten very good at letting go frustration in one long sigh and reminding myself that I get there when I get there, not one moment sooner.
I’m the traveller angry passengers hate and airline agents love, the one who can walk up to the counter after the flight-cancellation announcement, smile calmly, and say sincere thanks when the interaction is over, even when the result is an extra night away from home (as it all too often is; some day I will break myself of the habit of booking the last flight out, but that day is not this).
Today I got to the Madison airport far earlier than I needed to, which gave me leisure to grin when a security agent recognized the Silver Surfer logo taped to the Silver Surfer’s silvery surface. (Say that three times fast.) I re-buckled my shoes, settled into a seat with Midori Snyder’s Innamorati (highly recommended; I must read more by this woman) and let the time take care of itself.
(In passing—and I am certainly in passing, typing this 35,000 feet above ground and hurtling toward Montreal at some hideous rate of speed—I wonder if anyone has named the fantasy subgenre that essentially consists of reinventing existing semi-historical, semi-literary genres? Innamorati is a fine example of the type, part commedia, part Boccaccio, part straight-up Italy; and so are Kij Johnson’s brilliantly-revamped Japanese pillow-books. I find that I love these dearly and want to read more of them. If I got ambitious, I’d even write one, set of course in Spain, the country that is still the imaginative terrain of my heart despite everything graduate school did to me. But the Spain of brave wandering Egeria? Or the Arcipreste de Hita? The Cid? Or the doomed Spain breathing through the Abencerraje? I don’t know. Such gorgeous Spains they all are.)
My flight to Chicago, as you might have gathered from all this prating about patience, was late.
Air travel shares one trait with investing: sometimes keeping too-close track of things creates nothing more than pointless frustration. I wasn’t sure what time my flight to Montreal left, only that I had a fairly hefty layover, so I simply didn’t worry. I even laughed when the flight attendant announced my connecting gate and I realized I’d have to walk most of the length and breadth of Terminal 3. I did, however, grimace a bit (even my travel-hardened patience has limits) walking off the plane, when I checked the departure screens to find that my flight left at 5:36 and was listed as on-time. My faithful clip-watch said 5:01, you see, and I really needed to stop at the little artisans’ room.
Nothing to do but hoof it, so I did, weaving past janitors with a creaky-wheeled dumpster, oblivious knee-high children, and the usual raft of people grafted to cell phones. I arrived panting at the gate to see the door still open, but nothing showing on the announcement screen save the name and number of the flight. Bad sign.
The gate agent’s time was taken up with some yahoo (see, patience worn thin) who needed to be at another gate entirely, but still insisted on finding out why his plane wasn’t departing on time. “I’m guessing I’m late,” I said ruefully when he finally left, sliding my boarding pass across the counter.
She glanced at it. “No, you’re fine,” she said, though it was five-twenty-something by then. “We’ll start boarding in about twenty minutes.” Never been so glad to hear a plane was late, I tell you what.
When I flew into Montreal last August for Extreme Markup, customs was an unbelievable four-hour nightmare ordeal, something about a work slowdown by customs officials. I’ve no notion whether that’s been resolved.
I’m not worrying about it, though. I get there when I get there.