Re LAX ing

“Gnothi Seauton”- Know Thyself.  Inscribed above the entrance to the temple of Apollo at Delphi.

What are your feelings on fate?  My understanding of grand design precludes me from saying I was supposed to be, but I was definitelyplanning on being in Thailand right now, deep into a week long meditative retreat. (Spoiler alert: I’m not).  A recharging retreat was well overdue and, I felt, much needed to combat the growing stress and confusion that seemed to be emanating from my every pore in New York.  Sounds nice, right?  Summer’s nice.  I’ve done three such retreats before (only one to completion), and was starting to get a little fuzzy on technique because I wasn’t practicing like I should have been aaaand I’d learned three different methods that were starting to meld into one another.  I was adamant about going to Thailand this time, not because it was Thailand, but because it was home to the temple where the first retreat took place, and that seemed to be the method I responded best to.  Apparently.  Because I am obviously very Zen Master over here.

From the beginning, there was trouble.  It seemed like any computer I tried to book the flight on froze, or the website crashed, or I was interrupted.  For weeks I tried, and only the day before my departure was I able to get completely through.  And then I missed that flight.  Well, “missed” isn’t entirely accurate- it was overbooked, and for standbys, that means your not going anywhere.  There were similar numbers for the next day’s flight, so getting out of JFK did not look good.  But a flight out of LAX looked…possible.  So, I flew to L.A.  Flying standby can be a real nail-biter, and I’ve probably taken a few years off my life from the accumulated stress of five minutes to departure and still waiting to find out whether or not I have a seat.  LA was particularly trying.  There were a number of people who had not showed up for boarding, and they were getting ready to close the flight.  No shows=I go to Thailand.  I don’t know how many times they called “Last Call”; each time I was renewed with a sense of hope, each time was a lie.  C’est la vie.  C’est…hope. There were other standbys, two of whom were traveling together, discussing their options.  The first had been cleared for a seat, but was waiting to find out if her friend would also get on.

“If you don’t make it, I’m not going”, she said to the other.  This was excellent news for me because I stood in the middle of them on the list, so if she did not go, I would have a seat.  All the other passengers showed up, right before the last last call.  So there was just this one girl ahead of me on the list…and she decided to get on after all, leaving her friend (and me) behind.  Sigh.  C’est.

They say when one door closes another opens, or a window is opened, or the chimney finally gets cleared out…or whatever people say to cope with limitations.  In this case, the door to the jetway closed and the roof blew off the airport.  Thailand was a no go- a fact I came to terms with quickly and for the most part painlessly- but my other options seemed almost limitless.  One particularly bad option was to wait for the next day’s flight.  The list was already long, and if I dug my feet in, I might well have ended up spending the week in LAX.  Beyond that, I had 9 days before anyone expected me back at work, a packed bag, and 5 blue screens of potential departures from LAX.  Decision making is not a strength of mine, and when I’m presented with a scenario like that, with literally the world at my fingertips, I become completely immobilized.  While this may seem to be a problem of (geographically) global proportions, I think it also says quite a bit about what is going on in my brain most of the time.  Too many options.  Too much I want to do.  Cannot compute.  Must shut down everything.  Must take nap.

There were several Pacific destinations which were alluring simply because I was now so much closer to them than in JFK, Hawaii and Australia among them.  Among other considerations, I was in possession of one pair of flip flops, and no other shoes.  To the horror of the guy sitting across from me (when I cannot readily make decisions, I try to rope others-even complete strangers- into making them for me), I shot off a bunch of messages on couchsurfing.com to various residents of Sydney, Australia.  I reasoned at least one person would respond within 24 hours, exactly the time I’d be landing, muahahaha.

But then there’s Texas.  Which, if I’m really paying attention and am honest, I’ve been subconsciously avoiding.  However.  That is not a sustainable way of doing things and the ability to trade off my indecisive demons for a set of existential demons is always highly appealing.  Also, my grandmother is moving from her home in Oklahoma, where she has lived for decades, into an assisted living facility in Commerce.  The first load of furniture was coming later that week, and the totality of this made the idea of going anywhere but into deep meditation feel pretty childish.  It was late in the afternoon.  I’d called mom several times, trying to reason it out or again, have someone else make my decisions.  Dallas isn’t a straight shot from LAX.  Salt Lake City is in the middle.  This seemed like a nice compromise of self-work and help others-work:  stay amongst the mountains of SLC for a couple of days and then head down for the move.

It should be noted that while all this seems pretty straight forward now, I was an absolute mess at LAX.  These decisions were not clear then.  Every decision I considered not making felt like a mistake.  No made decision stayed made.  Next week, I’ll try to get into the meat of good decision making.  It will be a journey for both of us, believe.

I’d located a hostel in SLC.  On the plane ride over, I saw a snippet of a review for this hostel.  Without internet, I could not investigate further, only read of my intended destination:

“pretty sketchy place with many weird characters.  heard stories of thieves, chronic masturbators, other strange stuff…”

You know what?  Maybe I’ll shoot for that midnight plane to Dallas.  It’s a long way from Chang Mai, but it feels right.  I don’t always know where I stand on the idea of fate, whether or not something was supposed to happen or supposed to not happen, but I’m pretty sure that even if everything is predetermined, it can never be completely knowable.  Not the whys, not the whens, nothing.  But you can bet your bottom dollar that something is coming, and it will be good or bad, depending on where you’re standing.  It’s a strange kind of faith, knowing that everything might not turn out great, but that it will turn out, and that you really have very little  control over it.  Conversely, a full acknowledgement of having no control can be very liberating.  My mom ran across a good quote recently, and I don’t remember it exactly, so I’ll paraphrase:  You do not have the power to change the past, but if you act now, you can create a different future.*

Go ahead.  Somebody make a “self-work” joke.  Just make it.

*I sort of believe that.