At The Airport

Like everything else, the experience of becoming older and more eccentric has two sides.  There are the usual things – not being inclined to bound up and down stairs, maintaining my lists of things to do and keeping them current, and the bouts of doubt because you know you are headed for a different realm. 

But the other side of getting older comes under the heading of liberation.  With the loosening of the admonitions of childhood, with the lessening of preoccupation with personal vanity and making a good impression, there blooms a sense of Self: here I am, this is my day.  Surprises happen, and sometimes they are very funny.  But often the humor is something that I share only with myself, my private world in the adventures of aging which is rich with the sweetness of this inward movement toward my Soul. 

One incident along those lines can be recorded here, an incident that took place at the airport.  I was travelling for a long visit with my sister, bringing along my largest suitcase, which was very full.  I maneuvered effortlessly to the escalator, aided by the suitcase's little wheels, and managed to place the suitcase onto the moving step in front of me, following along as the next step presented itself.  As the suitcase and I traveled upward, it began to tilt in my direction, its step on the escalator seeming to disappear.  With gravity, balance, and weight all conspiring against me, I found myself in a helpless slow tilt.  There we were, the two of us slowly tipping over.  When I finally came to rest, I was lying on the steps of the escalator, heading upward feet first, with my suitcase on top of me.  This unusual posture for riding the escalator had not damaged me in any way, but required a quick assessment and reorientation to what would be an unusual arrival at the top.  My survival instincts came to my rescue, and I lifted the heavy weight off me and got back on my feet, resuming the proper posture for riding an escalator. 

I looked around to see if I had embarrassed myself publicly, and to my surprise I was the only one riding the moving staircase in both directions.  No one had witnessed my prostrate form under the suitcase.  Sensing a small miracle, I stepped off the escalator just as if I were a normal person. 

I must diverge a bit now to give you a personal grooming confession.  I sometimes put my hair in pin curls, those small twirls fastened by bobby pins that I learned to do in the 1950s.  On this day, having recovered from the trip up the escalator and gotten rid of my huge suitcase, I entered the security check wearing a stylish hand-knit cap over my pin curls.  I was a model of airport security efficiency as I took off my shoes and loaded them with other small items in the bid provided.  Then, as I walked past the metal detector, the alarm sounded.  The guard went at me with his wand and located the problem: my head! 

I had to take my cap off revealing my pin curls.  As people waited impatiently behind me, I quickly fumbled the bobby pins out of my hair while the security guard mumbled his displeasure with my incompetent behavior.  That did it!  A wonderful feeling of liberation engulfed me as I walked toward the gate, feeling the last strands of personal vanity vanish in the air.