Trying hard to get home

Trying to get home from NYC.  ‘Trying’ is the operative word.  Julia and I have been at the airport since 5 a.m.  We had a 6:55 plane which was cancelled (I got the email just after I tried to check in).  We were rebooked onto a 12:40 p.m. which has been delayed numerous times, currently until 3:50 but the plane is in  Albany and not off the ground and it is 2:40.  There is some “weather” and there is congestion.  Many planes on the ground, many in the air, no way of taking off and landing.  There are four or five plane-fulls of people sitting all over the place and a line for the service desk that is at least 40 people long that does not move and grows organically.

We had breakfast in the airport before we could check into out rescheduled flight, and then lunch post-security when the flight was delayed the first time.  Julia ate a personal pizza which will keep her for awhile.  I had a very small bean salad which was meant to be a snack until we got home.  

I’ve spent time working on an old manuscript that I wanted to work on this summer, texting everyone and anyone who needed to know where we are or would not be today.  Julia and I played a rather endless card game of War which right now seems to have flown by in minutes without notice.  Julia has used almost everything in her backpack, read some of her Redwall book out loud to any and everyone in listening range and is now drawing dinosaurs which I take it to mean that she is at the end of her patience.  They are eating each other.  She is sitting sprawled on the floor which is filthy but the chairs are uncomfortable and she was very good about sitting nicely for hours.  Really, she has been cooperative and uncomplaining and deserves many medals and bowls of rice.

It is hot and stuffy in this rather ugly hall, that I routinely pass through and give thanks that I do not have to regularly wait here.  There is very little air conditioning.  I have an awful headache because I am very tired, I am hot and I feel the mountains and waves of stress oozing from every body sitting or standing and working behind desks.  

And we wait.  

I’ve been reading and listening to meditation related stuff about present living, getting stuck, cracking open and seeing in new ways -- shifting focus.  Still, I ferociously defend the little bit of territory -- the plug of a charging kiosk -- that I’ve been waiting for to charge my phone.  

Is there a way to be here mindfully?  How many opportunities for kindness have I missed.  None of this is my nature, and exhaustion, stress and stuffy spaces don’t improve me.  I’ve known for a long time that the crabby person and the bitch do not improve with age.  They only become more of themselves.  Only the gentle, the kind, the patient and the generous grow in those qualities as they age.  At present, I don’t see it in my future.  And I am not and/or no longer angry about this wasted day.  Just rather grumpy, prone to harsh judgment about airline companies and employees, prone to feeling sorry for us and very sarcastic.  Possibly a mindful person would be sitting in some corner sending loving kindness out to their fellow travelers as well as airline staff.  I am not there.  At present, I cannot imagine when.

Update: rescheduled again for 4:20 and our number increase as two more flights, to Atlanta this time, have been redirect to other cities to land because they cannot land in Laguardia because planes on the ground cannot take off and are stuck in their gates.  

And another: Four flights to Chicago and Atlanta have been cancelled.  Our plane is in the air coming from Pittsburg.  There are flash flood warnings for an hour.

And another: On the plane but waiting in a long line for the plane to take off.  We may take off by 6:30.

Final update:  It was after 10 but we did get home.