On a normal-enough Tuesday, 3:46AM, I awake to my alarm for a 4AM pickup for the airport. My father-in-law graciously provides the lift.
We board early and the first error is apparent immediately. We remain at the gate for 45 minutes. Finally upon takeoff, there is another problem. The landing gear doesn’t retract properly. It’s a turnback.
Frustration tightens the face of more than a few patrons. But for the best part, all is peaceful. We will be late to where we’re going. For some, it will be too late for what they’d planned.
But in the scheme of things, this more-than-minor inconvenience will not make it into the long-term memory for nearly everyone on board.
Then when we arrive safely back at our origin we’re faced with another problem. We have to taxi to the other side of the Terminal. And then I look down at the right engine and there’s a strange mist stream issuing. It’s apparently another normal thing.
Quite an adventurous few hours.
There are people at present who are very seriously concerned about COVID-19, if not for themselves, it’s for vulnerable loved ones who face death due to pulmonary issues, suppressed immune systems and the like. Many people are staring down the barrel of weeks (and longer for some careful about prevent) in isolation. This virus is going to be around quite a while!
There are people facing cancer, those who have faced loss, and those for whom despair is theirs. And there are a good many people in that liminal in-between land with no control over their lives.
There are those also who have profoundly impaired dependents who need round the clock care.
So many live with the constant disappointment that they’re too anxious or depressed to function, while of those who are afflicted who do function suffer from secondary maladies.
Life isn’t easy.
So when you’re delayed on a tarmac, required to turnback, have to taxi around the Terminal a while, and are delayed a few hours it isn’t really a problem.
At least that’s what I’m telling myself. J
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