The Lost Thread

As I write this, dear readers, I am in limbo. Caught up in time and in space, with no real sense of either the passing of time or direction of travel in this liminal vestige that once stood for travel and progress of mankind. In short: I’m in an airport. I was supposed to be home just a little less than twelve hours ago, but instead I’ve slept, nominally, and am currently lacking enough caffeine to generate coherences.

What day is it again?

This month has been a very busy one. My friends, I will not be publishing anything in the month of June. Rather than hastening out a story over the last few weeks around the other things happening, I would rather slowly and deliberately craft it until it’s a complete work. Not that I would publish it incomplete, but unpolished is almost as bad.

In the meantime, I’m here at the airport waiting to see if this time, the flight I’m supposed to board to wing my way home to my husband, own bed, and undoubtedly thoroughly miffed cat…if that flight will be jerked away like a carrot twitched along at the end of a stick lures the donkey along her plodding path. I am about ready to fore swear all commercial flying at this point. I rather enjoyed my road trip earlier this month. I could do those once or twice a year and would enjoy them far more than this interminable progress in fits and starts while trapped like a rat in a maze.

A rat, a donkey, what else am I supposed to be?

This journey started with a reminder to be grateful. I arrived in a timely fashion with room to spare for my flight, which was then delayed for over two hours. Finally, the plane which had been stranded on the tarmac by lightning approached the gate, and I realized sitting quietly in the terminal was superior to the poor people who’d been stuck on that plane the whole time.

I arrived at my destination due to a fortuitous second delay of my connecting flight, safe if much later than planned. Later that morning after a few hours of sleep my sister and I drove to meet up with our Dad. I’ll likely write about the joy of the visit when I am in a sunnier mood. Coming home again, we were both flying out of the same airport, and got notifications that our flights were being changed, so we cut the visit short and hurried back to the airport.

The in-between place. The space between here and there.

Flights changed, flights delayed, a mechanical problem for both of us. What was it? well, a flat tire, and a malevolent mutter of ‘that plane has issues.’ More questions, phone calls, and a voucher later, we spent the night in hotels, not in the same place because mere moments between decision and information lapsed, meaning we didn’t get the chance to prolong our visit a few hours. Just as well, sleep was badly needed by then. Food? Well, if you don’t plan ahead you will be SOL, the airlines don’t care. A token for a single meal, over the span most people eat two or three in. Protein bars in your bags, my friends, and an empty water bottle to be refilled once past the kabuki security.

Where was that thread, again?

Somewhere on the other end of all this suspension of time in a soup of fatigue and sound there will be home. I keep yearning towards home. Perhaps. Perhaps this time the weather will not threaten. Perhaps this time the plane will have been maintained. Perhaps this time they will not have pushed man and material to breaking points and beyond. Perhaps trust is misplaced.

There are other options.

I can take them up, and weave the threads into an article, a story. There are people who wander in this space lost with me and every one has a tale if I choose to tell it.

After I’ve had sleep. A lot of sleep. In my own bed.