<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"Times New Roman"; panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} p {margin-right:0in; mso-margin-top-alt:auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:Times;} table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-parent:""; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} </style> It's finally caught up to me.  Being late.<br /><br />I'm so late today, I am going to miss my flight.<br /><br />I will not let myself think this.  And it's also too late because I type a text to my beloved,"I'm so late, I am going to miss my flight." <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2417/2..." imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2417/2..." width="200" /></a></div>It's a cold day, 50 degrees with no clouds and a clear sky.  Wind gusts devil dead and brittle leaves in circles on the street, the sidewalk and in front of where I sit.  I wait for the Red Line to take me to the Portland Airport.<br /><br /><i>Negative thinking brings a negative reality about.  </i><br /><br />I know, I know, I know.<br /><br /><i>What we think we are one step away from creating.</i><br /><br />I know.<br /><br />But I cannot help myself.  This time, I've really done it.   This time I'm so late, I am going to miss an important flight to an important place, and I am so freaked out by the "being late enough to miss a flight," I am about to cry.<br /><br />And here's the deal. I should not be late.  I was up at five, I had hours to get this right, I got my kids to school and had an hour plus to spare.  I choreographed the whole thing out too.  That's what former TV news producers do.  They are careful with time and while I have a habit of packing my hours tight, never letting a minute of fat slip through, I never timed things this close.<br /><br />My plan was so simple:  Walk to train, catch train, arrive hour early.  I thought I would get to the train in fifteen minutes but somehow it took me thirty and then I missed the train.<br /><br />And so I did what I never allow myself to do.  I panicked.  I texted my fear of doom to my new beloved,  just for a bit of his sweet southern reassurance, which he was fast to give.  But then I went a step further and asked advice from my "former," the father of the kids, because he's a guy who catches two planes a week and knows how to make it work.<br /><br />"How tight have you cut a Southwest flight," I typed.<br />"Fifteen minutes," he texted back.<br /> "I've get less than 30," I texted.<br /> "Plenty of time," he wrote.<br /><br />I'm on the train at this point, breathing.  In, out, in, out and I tug out a book by Larry Brooks, <i>Story Engineerin</i>g.  I read because I have a class to teach in a few days and I need to read this book.  So I read and pretend I'm not losing my fricking mind.<br /> ~ <br /><br />The airport is a mess.  Security lines so far back and so packed with people, I assess and decide to take the shorter check point which means I'll also have to run twice as far.  I have strong legs.  It's fine.  The security lanes are jammed and this is my moment. I am now a homeless person.  I am one of the people I see every single day.  I am a person who needs other people to help.  I mean, I-really-need-help.  I'm desperate. I cannot miss my flight.<br /><br />I stand in the impossible long security line, tap, tap, tap my foot and it takes me almost ten minutes to work it out in my head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>“Ask for help,” I tell myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>“No, no, it’s too much of a hassle, I don’t want to bother these people,” I tell myself back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>“ASK FOR HELP,” I tell myself again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>“If you don’t, you will miss your flight.”<br /><br />So I swallow my pride and ask.  I am tentative at first, "Can I move forward in front of you?  I really need help." <br /><br />The lady wears a pink sweater.  She smiles and says, “Of course.” <br /><br />I ask a man who wears a sweater vest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>“Is it okay?”<br /><br />“Sure,” he says. <br /><br />Like the Red Sea, the lines part and I am at the security checkpoint and through and getting scanned and I'm telling you there had to be three hundred people who made way for me.  They all said, "no problem, of course, you bet."<br /><br />As I ran, barefooted through the airport, cutting my feet on the metal of the moving sidewalk and barely able to breathe, people moved.  One man called out, "you can do it.  Go. Go. Go."<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.thecypresshotel.com/design..." imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" src="http://www.thecypresshotel.com/design..." width="200" /></a></div>I ran and ran and it was a poem by Sharon Old's that came into my mind.  The poem was about how she ran in an airport to catch a flight to see her dying father and how she made it on the plane with a second to spare and then wept the way the dead weep when they realize they have made it into heaven.  "With massive relief."<br /><br />I made it to the gate.  Heart pounding.  Breath in ragged, hot, dry gulps.  Bare feet on fire.  I stood on line, in my spot with my ticket and pulled my flip flops out of my bag.  I dropped them on the ground and slid my feet in and gave mountains of thanks for the kindness and generosity of everyone who got me to the flight on time. <br /><br />I asked for help. Help came.  <br /><br />After all these years of going my life pretty much alone and pretty much terrified and pretty much NEVER asking for help, I asked for help and got it.  It was so easy and yet, so horribly hard.  All around me, there was help.   <br /><br /><br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com...' alt='' /></div>