Ramblings. As in: Have Words -Will Ramble. As in: Ramble: to write or talk aimlessly or without sequence of ideas, to proceed with turns and twists; meander As In: observances of an everyday life in passing through the spectrum of extraordinary.
Travels and Travails
Friday, February 24, 2006
It was cold and getting colder when I finally made it to the Nashville airport, and remembering my last great excursion of wandering around the parking lot for 30 minutes or more in the rain looking for my car in long-term parking and trying not to catch pneumonia and die, I decided to pull straight up to valet parking and hand them the keys. (And upon returning I was oh so glad that I did!)
And then I flew to Asheville by way of Atlanta to attend the Malaprops signing (www.Malaprops.com) and was escorted there by my longtime friend, playwright and current Asheville resident, Waylon Wood. Now, I assure you - just like you - I can be savvy with the best of them but there is something about me that has an element of Lucy Ricardo (particularly if I am ever, ever traveling with my cousin Deb - we seem to channel Lucy and Ethel and their antics follow us everywhere.) So I arrive like Lucy in Asheville and have neglected my husbands advice to go get CASH out of the bank to travel with (and I can hear Ricky now saying, But Luccccccy, didn't I tell you . . . ) but I think No, I'm okay - I have plastic and I have checks and more importantly, I'm in a hurry.
So I hit the road where I will soon discover that there has been a huge mistake on my plastic and although the company greatly apologies, it will take three or four days to get it cleared up. So I fork out the last of my cash for a coke and a shuttle from the airport thinking, It's okay, I have my checks and surely I can cash a check somewhere. And I keep wondering what is that constant drip, drip, drip that I keep hearing. Only to discover once I've checked into the hotel, once I've found myself standing outside my room barefoot and locked out (but thankfully in my jeans and sweater) once I have located a person to verify that I am not a terrorist and to let me back into my room, that the drip, drip, drip is a leaky water bottle that has now managed to send everything in my bag floating a few inches - the pages of Messenger from my readers copy I have marked, my make-up bag, hairbrush, leather journal, and my checkbook which now drips water and has faded the account number into oblivion.
My lovely playwright friend rings the room and says, "Hi, so how's the famous author?"
"Uh, Waylon, I know we really haven't had a chance to visit one-on-one for about 3 or 7 or 10 years but could you maybe buy me dinner and loan me some cash to get home on?"
"It wasn't like this when Jos came to town," he says, referencing Joshilyn Jackson, God's in Alabama www.joshilynjackson.com And he isn't laughing. He's serious.
Later that night during dinner in a French restaurant, over wine and warm food and warmer memories I am thankful to be out of the cold and able to simply look across the table at my friend's face much the way that Kate looks across the diner table at Nehemiah in The Messenger of Magnolia Street. To simply be sitting in a warm place on the earth on a cold night beholding my friend and conjuring up the things we have in common and arguing about the things we don't and agreeing to go on loving each other over and around the borders of our differences. To be there when the other one breaks down or runs out of money or runs out of life. In sickness and in health. In good times and in bad because all relationships, including friendships, are a type of marriage - a give and take and a lot of love and patience and maybe a little exasperation and I'm thinking about this as Waylon says again, "It wasn't like this when Jos came," and he reaches for the check. "When Jos came, she picked up the tab."
Then we walk out into the cold in search of chocolate and desert and stay up too, too late. And he sees me safely back to the hotel and checks on the weather forecast repeatedly the next morning, calling to report in exactly what time my flights are leaving, "Delayed but not canceled," he says. Then the snow starts coming down heavier and he gets off from work to drive me to the airport and we stop by Malaprops again for latte's and hot chocolate and a paperback I purchase to read on the delayed multiple plane trips home.
"Hungry?" Waylon asks me and since we have extra time to spend before my flight I ask,
"You buying?" (Well, I have no checks, no plastic for 2 more days, and enough cash to get my car out of hock from Valet parking.)
So we time it just right to go to two restaurants that are closed and finally to circle back to Arbys where I order something fast and easy like a SALAD. I forget what Waylon orders although I do remember him saying, after I had mumbled something about "I should have ordered a kids meal. That would have been perfect" to never leave my husband because he is the only one that will put up with me. (It takes a special anointing from God to live with someone like Lucy but who is also very, very serious.) So, we drive off with me saying, "Why did I order a salad, I can't eat all this - here you take it."
And Waylon pulls up to the airport just about screaming, "You take the salad - just pack it! Just take it!" as he puts the salad in my large bag full of wet journals and books and make-up and a hair brush - just shoves it right on top in full view so that now the bag will not zip closed. And then he holds up the cap of a pen that he finds on the floor of the van and says, "Look," holding it out before me, " I just want you to know that you now have a pen somewhere drying out." And he's so serious he might as well be old but he's not and I'm waiting for him to add, "It wasn't like this when Jos was here." But instead he shoves my coke in my face and says, "Take one last drink," since my hands are full I obey like a child and drink and then he adds, "Now, if you get delayed, snowed in, or have any problems, whatever you do - don't call me." And then he hugs me and turns me around and says, "Go." And as I check in at the Delta counter the doors part behind me and a blast of cold air walks in and Waylon is standing in the middle of the cold asking, "You okay? On time? Everything alright?" And I smile and say, "Yes, I've got it from here - really."
I go through security where the first man says, "Nice looking salad there." And my bags and the salad go through x-ray and I think about radiated food and if it is good for you or bad for you and the security woman at the end of the line says, "Great looking salad you have there." And the woman at the gate checking my boarding pass says, "Wow, did you get that salad in the airport?" And I run for the plane and am the last one on. And then we sit there together, me and the actress woman next to me and the comedian behind me that will tell jokes on and off to his seatmate for the next hour and the corporate consultant that chuckles and says, "Good one" a lot for forty minutes due to traffic being delayed in Atlanta. But I have a new novel to read so I'm okay.
And at some point I make it from Concourse A in Atlanta to concourse C while almost losing my coat and my bags and my salad as my coat is being seriously sucked up in a crack in the down escalator (but I manage to save it by jerking it and ripping the buttons off and think, This doesn't happen to other people trying to get through the airport) and later I sit, my salad and me, (yes, yes I know but it's more poetic that way) at an almost deserted gate and watch the snow out the large window and the people and I am thankful. Thankful for safe planes and for Waylon and Arbys and for something radiated and little road weary but green and good to a tired traveler. Then eventually an elderly man with a smiling face comes over and says, "Finished with this?" and I say - "Yes," and I'm amazed at his smile, at his attention to detail as picks up the empty salad bowl, at his life. And I read and watch the people and watch the clock and catch pieces of the news from the airport television monitors and then they are calling us and the Nashville contingent begins to load up and there is a great universal sigh of relief and everyone has the same soft word on their lips, home. You hear it over and over - home. We're almost home. And there is among the people on this plane a type of camaraderie that hasn't been there previously on other flights. A general we are in this thing together, we'll make the best of it feeling - so we all make small talk. The people with the sunburns, the people home from cruises, the tired business travelers, the writers and musicians, now we all have one thing in common, we're going home.
We begin our decent and I look out at at the night sky, at the lights that are Nashville in the darkness and it's never been so beautiful. So inviting. "
"I heard it's sixteen degrees. We all better bundle up." And a baby begins to cry, to wail, and the man in front of me leans over and says, "Poor thing, must be his ears." And I smile at the patience and understanding in his voice. And we walk out into the cold. To shuttles and parked cars and taxis and into our everyday, ordinary, extraordinary lives.
I approach the valet window, so happy for this luxury, so happy I haven't lost my wet ticket. That it can still be read.
"We're running behind, " the woman tells me. "The cars are covered in snow, the windshields are covered in ice."
"No problem," I say. And I mean it. No worries. Akuna Matatda. There's free coffee and I have a book to read.
And I'm home.
In all your Travels and Travails - Safe Journey,
River Jordan
posted by River Jordan at 8:50 AM
0 comments
 
Previous Posts
Archives
River Jordan Photo: Anne Marie Truman
|
