Alone in a Crowd

As if there is no tomorrow the phone rings with every call I have been waiting and since they can never come alone, also the call I was hoping would never come. Such happiness yet morbid fear in the same span of time. You see it is such a please to talk to a friend, preferably one you went out with at some point and thus share such an understanding and common set of experiences it is honestly a pleasure. Any bitterness? Actually no.

For I would not want to disappoint avid readers who would be foolish enough to think that traveling is boring, there is some excitement for the way home. Wonderfully inclement weather in Washington caused our plane to be an hour late to arrive (nothing new) but as we sat in the bullpen where they place all planes who have been naughty naughty planes (actually ones where they have no place to put them), we listen to air traffic control and the pilots. Keep in mind that these planes are being told they will be stranded there for upwards of three hours just sitting on the tarmac. One of the early planes (actually next in line) was told that they lost their routing and had to wait until they got new routing. The ground controller apologized and the pilot accepted graciously. Then we hear in a classic Seinfeld voice from some un-identified plane, “No Routing for you!”. Plenty of laughter on the airwaves. Then a plane was allowed to leave and all you hear on the airwaves from the departing plane was in the best Alladin Genie voice, ‘ We are OOOUUTTTTAA here!!’. Nice to see that while everyone is losing their patience and cool people can still keep their sense of humor (as we are roughly 2 ½ hours late getting back home).

But there are some pleasures to this. Somewhere over Utah we pass over a massive lightening storm. If you have never seen a lightening storm from the air it is absolutely amazing. It is indescribable especially at night. All you see is clouds loading over the ground and cast pools of light that materialize as if from the gods themselves. They come from below you and above, lighting the interior of the plane. They highlight the clouds as a if taking a picture of these most beautiful formations of moisture. Such a wondrous but most certainly dangerous sight. Then like a flash we see in an extraordinarily bright flash that there are not two layers of clouds below and above the plane but one massive donut of a cloud formation, looking a mix between an alien space craft and a tornado. Flashes of light like gods flinging spells at each other. First from the left and then from the right, sometimes crashing in the middle. And yet our plane is perfectly still almost like we are floating alongside cheering them on, hoping for a wonderous victory. It seems to go on forever, we can see through small breaks the towns that look so small and insignificant below. Is this how aliens must feel when they look down from above at our tiny civilizations? A single flash of lighting seems to cover the entire city with one fell swoop. And just like that we pass the storm and into the quiet of nothingness we once more emerge.

But this leads me to the title of this entry. Watching Next Stop Wonderland a movie recommended by one of my friends on Netflix, there was an interesting quote which consisted something to the extent, ‘I am not lonely when I am home by myself, I find I am lonely when in a crowded place such as a subway or plane’. How true that is. I love taking quite walks after work around the park or in the community just to clear my mind, work things out. I never feel lonely on those walks, only when surrounded by hundreds of people. We can be quite content to simply spend time with ourselves and enjoy our own company, is that so strange. But yet when surrounded by laughter, anger, frustration and the entire array of emotions that is when we feel our own loneliness like a hunger in our belly. So the solution? You smile and talk to the stewardess whose birthday it happens to be today and although it is her birthday she is still working. The chocolate truffles I received from the hotel served no better use than to cheer her up (don’t worry her husband is taking her out later tomorrow), but now she can have a little pick-me up on the flight. That was enough to fill that little space today (the ice cream from first class she provided as thanks didn’t hurt either).

On a personal note (as if the rest was not personal), I ask you if you are religious to pray. Pray for lost causes and an end to family suffering. Pray for a miracle and pray for every moment those families have while still whole and before they forever lose one of their own. If you don’t pray, hope really really hard. God Bless everyone.