Here I am. Depending on what time zone it is maybe it is 11:40 Nevada time, or 12:40 Salt Lake time. All I know is it is fucking late and I should be asleep and the more I don't sleep the harder it is going to be. But once that sleep button is missed forget it - you might catch a "few winks under the bed" so to speak (no coincidence the manager out this way is named Jed), but the actual sleep train is just not going to arrive the way it normally does. Doesn't matter how fucking exhausted you may be - just ain't going to happen. But let me backtrack a little bit.
I flew out from Reno to Salt Lake yesterday to attend some training out this way that took place today. All in all based on what I actually learned during training, I can't say it was really that imperative I should have attended this class, but that is the way the people who feed me and employ me say it had to be, so who was I to question. Never mind I am going to be driving right back out this way next week and starting about a couple 84 hour work week shifts (that's right 12 hours a day, 7 days a week) as part of the call to help out the neighboring region, but I was supposed to make this one a quick run in and out of here yesterday and today, although today has now turned into tomorrow - based on local time anyways.
First of all airports are the biggest centers of stress you can imagine. 9/11 didn't help the already tense feeling of an airport, now the paranoia is greater - the dudes at security stared at my little camera bag like it was some kind of terrorist detonation device in security today and held up the line. You start to feel guilty of something, even though you are just trying to get your shit on the plane. To add to that stress, for me there is always that nagging feeling that I better get to the gate on time or I will miss my plane. The idea of missing my plane always seemed like such a horrifying possibility to me. The possibility of being stranded, not being able to get to where I needed to be - struck a real fear in me. Of course, getting there real early always seemed to help, a little. Back when I first met my now best (or one of my best anyways - four way tie between Kirk, Younday, John and Rich - Joe might be the runner up, but being in Europe makes it hard to communicate) - excuse me - friends - Kirk, we were all tripping on the chemicals that make the trip possible- and we had a 6:00 AM flight out of Oakland after an incredible Grateful Dead performance at the arena on New Years Eve 1989 going to 1990 - and we had time to kill after the show ended, so Kirk was driving around town and cutting it real close to get to the flight out. There wasn't all the 9-11 shit going on back then, but as I was tripping and we finally got to the airport at something like 5 minutes to 6 - I was completely freaked out and I had this thought that I wanted to strangle this guy who was going to make me miss my plane. Somehow we made it on time, but that idea was planted in my head - that overwhelming fear of missing the plane. He often cut it close a few other times, but nothing like that.
More recently, last summer coming out of the nightmare airport - Vegas - on an overnight run, I got confused about the location of the gate - ended up taking some passenger bus that went along the runway, it got stuck behind spilled luggage, was dragging on and on - and finally it got me to another place and I ultimately realized I had gotten lost and had no need to ever take the bus to begin with. I raced over and arrived just 10 minutes to flight time. That flight was delayed and I was spared - but still - the tension, the anxiety, the race to get to that plane was upsetting. One of my last times out, I left my glasses behind at the Reno airport and got completely flustered when I couldn't find where I had placed my driver's license after security. After all, God forbid I fly out to Vegas and get stranded because I lost my damn license. Yeah I know - I need to calm down - well that just isn't who I am. I am wound tight and the whole flying process brings out the worst of it.
So here is the stage for today - on an unconscious level I sabotaged myself and it was a conspiracy of events that played into it. I am not a shizophrenic, but this had the elements of a shizophrenic bad trip even though no chemical were involved this time around - except maybe a little of my latest over the counter SAM-e I am now taking. Okay - I am against pills - and right now maybe this is an experiment - the good part is it helps joint pain (my left knee bothers me) and colors/lifts the mood , kind of a jolt - the bad side is the increase in anxiety and I am already prone to it - and this extra anxiety was all going into my system when this event happened. It should have been a foreshadowing that at the Delta check in gate I heard them offer a cheap hotel to a very frustrated man. He looked quite defeated and little did I know that was my first indication of a sneak preview. The last flight out of here - of course it had to be - was booked by my travel department at 9:00 PM. It was non-stop to Reno - one of the few available, and if I had left on an earlier flight I would have gone through Vegas and it would have gotten me back even later. So this made sense. The guys in the training class took us all out to eat at 6 and I was checking the clock. I wolfed down my steak and got out at 7:30, got gas filled in the rental and had plenty of time to do my thing. I dropped off the rental, and after getting through security I had about 50 minutes of time to spare. I was behind on some work, so I decided to get going on my laptop. The ticket said D5 for the boarding gate, but my mind was in conspiracy mode - I saw D4, not 5. Maybe it was the lack of sleep from the night before, due to adjusting to the time zone change of an hour, or just staying at a new place often throws me out of my beloved routine. I was a zombie for most of the day, and training just dragged on and on. I could swear I saw D4 on that ticket. Maybe I just remembered the 4 after seeing the 5. The numbers are close enought. Most of the time I doublecheck the ticket almost obsessively, but I was pretty confident I was at the right gate. I did check the boards for the Reno flight upstairs, but they only listed the 8:30 one - at the time, another part of the conspiracy of mis-information. At D4 there was no sign of any flight listed out. It did not occur to me strange that no flight information was posted. In the past they have posted the earlier flight if you arrive too far in advance. Yes - it SHOULD have occurred to me that was strange, but I rationalized I had gotten there early and they hadn't set it up yet. Oddly, there was a Delta dude hanging out behind the counter the way someone normally is prior to a flight. It just concluded the plane was just coming in late the closer it got to 9. I looked outside and it was dim, but in my mind the gate looked empty without a plane. I heard the Delta guy at the counter mentioning a late plane from Mexico. Kids near me seemed to be saying when are we going to board. It all seemed to fit in my head that the plane was running late. I checked on line and another clue should have told me something - no delays listed - but I just figured they hadn't caught on yet. I waited and waited. At some point the plane in the dark was visible - maybe it had always been there, I thought it was not there earlier - possibly a trick of the light? People started coming in, but from the opposite gate on D3. My friend Kirk (yes - more irony - the same one who so often came so close to being the car drive to allow me to almost miss my flight) called me about 5 minutes prior to the flight and about 10 minutes later it dawned on me to doublecheck my ticket. This was now 5 minutes after the flight left. I looked down and saw it was a 5, not a 4. To my horror I ran over to the right gate, and it was too late. It was still open the way it normally would be before a flight, but no plane - that was clear. I had missed it by minutes and caught on just too late.
In Jungian terms this was my own shadow that set me up for this mess. Not looking closely at the ticket, the little charade with the man at the counter talking about a late plane and the kids asking for the plane - it was the perfect setup to fool me - to allow me to fool myself. I created my own little distorted reality, with a little help from some other participants who played along - the same way my same friend Kirk does when he is in his paranoid tripping mode and everyone around appears to be coming down on him. I believe this is the one time it will happen in my life in this particular fashion, just like the one time I tried to drive off with the gasoline nozzle still in the tank of my car when I was drop dead exhausted from a road trip to and from Bishop for my job. Being tired always helps. But - I just had to know what it was like - on some level, unconsciously perhaps, to have my fear realized - to actually experience missing a flight - not just one where I could take out the next one in a couple hours, but to actually strand me for the night - like all those people you see stranded on TV when weather screws them up. I just had to know for myself. Years after I have stopped doing pyschedlics, I created my own edgy trip here. My first reaction was to blame myself - of course - after years of being beaten down with blame by my folks, that is the first thing I will cling to. I called my boss and told him I was going to spend the night at the airport, and told him I had made a bad mistake. He insisted I get a hotel, so I did. Granted it was the cheap-o Econolodge, kind of reminiscent of all those Motel Sixes I used to stay at for Dead shows. But, I took what I could get. The Latino driver of the shuttle from the airport was like a savior, I only had a 5 dollar bill as my smallest and I handed it to him as a tip in gratitude. I showered and my mind screwed with me and I had all sorts of twisted unconscious dementor like images while I tried in vain to sleep. I can hear the train come by hear blaring its horn every 5 minutes and traffic is loud out. If I sleep at all it will be a miracle. Maybe if I am lucky I will get another hour or two. It won't be enough - that is all part of the karma here.
And still - oddly it seems this was what the real plan was all along, I just didn't realize it until now. I took a little detour and my soul led me to the core of my fears. It is on a deeper level - the fear of falling through the cracks, going homeless, living on the streets, falling off the path of employment and relative success - the fear of being one of those people begging for money. It terrifies me. I have never really known it, but when I fall off the normal plan or path, even for one instant - like I did tonight, I live that out - taste it anyways, even though you can never really know something like that until you actually are on the street. Sure I am in a smelly, cigarette smoke filled cheezy motel room - with a signed note that if I smoke here I will pay a fine of another 300 bucks (as if smoking could make this room smell any worse) , and I am sure it is a shitty part of town. But even so I have it pretty good compared to those who experience walking the streets every day of their life, or one of the millions upon millions that cannot eat enough to survive. I am too wound up to sleep, but I am using this as an opportunity to try to forgive myself, send love to myself, and accept the situation and myself in a time when the natural tendency is to do the opposite and call myself a big fucking idiot. This situation was my own karma and I created it, but blaming myself won't help. What's done is done. Initially I did want to say what a fucking idiot I was for doing this. Technically it was a mistake, but the more I think about it - it was no mistake at all. My shadow finally took over and brought me a little closer to the core of my fears. I may not arrive home for another 12 hours, but that's okay. I will get there when I need to.
Something tells me though - that maybe next time I have to deal with aiport hell again, I won't quite be so nervous. And I will probably think twice before sitting down at a gate without any flight information - and hell yes - I will be doublechecking my ticket for the gate! Once in a while when I get too comfortable, I seem to need something to shake me up a little to keep me on my toes. On that level - mission accomplished.
I flew out from Reno to Salt Lake yesterday to attend some training out this way that took place today. All in all based on what I actually learned during training, I can't say it was really that imperative I should have attended this class, but that is the way the people who feed me and employ me say it had to be, so who was I to question. Never mind I am going to be driving right back out this way next week and starting about a couple 84 hour work week shifts (that's right 12 hours a day, 7 days a week) as part of the call to help out the neighboring region, but I was supposed to make this one a quick run in and out of here yesterday and today, although today has now turned into tomorrow - based on local time anyways.
First of all airports are the biggest centers of stress you can imagine. 9/11 didn't help the already tense feeling of an airport, now the paranoia is greater - the dudes at security stared at my little camera bag like it was some kind of terrorist detonation device in security today and held up the line. You start to feel guilty of something, even though you are just trying to get your shit on the plane. To add to that stress, for me there is always that nagging feeling that I better get to the gate on time or I will miss my plane. The idea of missing my plane always seemed like such a horrifying possibility to me. The possibility of being stranded, not being able to get to where I needed to be - struck a real fear in me. Of course, getting there real early always seemed to help, a little. Back when I first met my now best (or one of my best anyways - four way tie between Kirk, Younday, John and Rich - Joe might be the runner up, but being in Europe makes it hard to communicate) - excuse me - friends - Kirk, we were all tripping on the chemicals that make the trip possible- and we had a 6:00 AM flight out of Oakland after an incredible Grateful Dead performance at the arena on New Years Eve 1989 going to 1990 - and we had time to kill after the show ended, so Kirk was driving around town and cutting it real close to get to the flight out. There wasn't all the 9-11 shit going on back then, but as I was tripping and we finally got to the airport at something like 5 minutes to 6 - I was completely freaked out and I had this thought that I wanted to strangle this guy who was going to make me miss my plane. Somehow we made it on time, but that idea was planted in my head - that overwhelming fear of missing the plane. He often cut it close a few other times, but nothing like that.
More recently, last summer coming out of the nightmare airport - Vegas - on an overnight run, I got confused about the location of the gate - ended up taking some passenger bus that went along the runway, it got stuck behind spilled luggage, was dragging on and on - and finally it got me to another place and I ultimately realized I had gotten lost and had no need to ever take the bus to begin with. I raced over and arrived just 10 minutes to flight time. That flight was delayed and I was spared - but still - the tension, the anxiety, the race to get to that plane was upsetting. One of my last times out, I left my glasses behind at the Reno airport and got completely flustered when I couldn't find where I had placed my driver's license after security. After all, God forbid I fly out to Vegas and get stranded because I lost my damn license. Yeah I know - I need to calm down - well that just isn't who I am. I am wound tight and the whole flying process brings out the worst of it.
So here is the stage for today - on an unconscious level I sabotaged myself and it was a conspiracy of events that played into it. I am not a shizophrenic, but this had the elements of a shizophrenic bad trip even though no chemical were involved this time around - except maybe a little of my latest over the counter SAM-e I am now taking. Okay - I am against pills - and right now maybe this is an experiment - the good part is it helps joint pain (my left knee bothers me) and colors/lifts the mood , kind of a jolt - the bad side is the increase in anxiety and I am already prone to it - and this extra anxiety was all going into my system when this event happened. It should have been a foreshadowing that at the Delta check in gate I heard them offer a cheap hotel to a very frustrated man. He looked quite defeated and little did I know that was my first indication of a sneak preview. The last flight out of here - of course it had to be - was booked by my travel department at 9:00 PM. It was non-stop to Reno - one of the few available, and if I had left on an earlier flight I would have gone through Vegas and it would have gotten me back even later. So this made sense. The guys in the training class took us all out to eat at 6 and I was checking the clock. I wolfed down my steak and got out at 7:30, got gas filled in the rental and had plenty of time to do my thing. I dropped off the rental, and after getting through security I had about 50 minutes of time to spare. I was behind on some work, so I decided to get going on my laptop. The ticket said D5 for the boarding gate, but my mind was in conspiracy mode - I saw D4, not 5. Maybe it was the lack of sleep from the night before, due to adjusting to the time zone change of an hour, or just staying at a new place often throws me out of my beloved routine. I was a zombie for most of the day, and training just dragged on and on. I could swear I saw D4 on that ticket. Maybe I just remembered the 4 after seeing the 5. The numbers are close enought. Most of the time I doublecheck the ticket almost obsessively, but I was pretty confident I was at the right gate. I did check the boards for the Reno flight upstairs, but they only listed the 8:30 one - at the time, another part of the conspiracy of mis-information. At D4 there was no sign of any flight listed out. It did not occur to me strange that no flight information was posted. In the past they have posted the earlier flight if you arrive too far in advance. Yes - it SHOULD have occurred to me that was strange, but I rationalized I had gotten there early and they hadn't set it up yet. Oddly, there was a Delta dude hanging out behind the counter the way someone normally is prior to a flight. It just concluded the plane was just coming in late the closer it got to 9. I looked outside and it was dim, but in my mind the gate looked empty without a plane. I heard the Delta guy at the counter mentioning a late plane from Mexico. Kids near me seemed to be saying when are we going to board. It all seemed to fit in my head that the plane was running late. I checked on line and another clue should have told me something - no delays listed - but I just figured they hadn't caught on yet. I waited and waited. At some point the plane in the dark was visible - maybe it had always been there, I thought it was not there earlier - possibly a trick of the light? People started coming in, but from the opposite gate on D3. My friend Kirk (yes - more irony - the same one who so often came so close to being the car drive to allow me to almost miss my flight) called me about 5 minutes prior to the flight and about 10 minutes later it dawned on me to doublecheck my ticket. This was now 5 minutes after the flight left. I looked down and saw it was a 5, not a 4. To my horror I ran over to the right gate, and it was too late. It was still open the way it normally would be before a flight, but no plane - that was clear. I had missed it by minutes and caught on just too late.
In Jungian terms this was my own shadow that set me up for this mess. Not looking closely at the ticket, the little charade with the man at the counter talking about a late plane and the kids asking for the plane - it was the perfect setup to fool me - to allow me to fool myself. I created my own little distorted reality, with a little help from some other participants who played along - the same way my same friend Kirk does when he is in his paranoid tripping mode and everyone around appears to be coming down on him. I believe this is the one time it will happen in my life in this particular fashion, just like the one time I tried to drive off with the gasoline nozzle still in the tank of my car when I was drop dead exhausted from a road trip to and from Bishop for my job. Being tired always helps. But - I just had to know what it was like - on some level, unconsciously perhaps, to have my fear realized - to actually experience missing a flight - not just one where I could take out the next one in a couple hours, but to actually strand me for the night - like all those people you see stranded on TV when weather screws them up. I just had to know for myself. Years after I have stopped doing pyschedlics, I created my own edgy trip here. My first reaction was to blame myself - of course - after years of being beaten down with blame by my folks, that is the first thing I will cling to. I called my boss and told him I was going to spend the night at the airport, and told him I had made a bad mistake. He insisted I get a hotel, so I did. Granted it was the cheap-o Econolodge, kind of reminiscent of all those Motel Sixes I used to stay at for Dead shows. But, I took what I could get. The Latino driver of the shuttle from the airport was like a savior, I only had a 5 dollar bill as my smallest and I handed it to him as a tip in gratitude. I showered and my mind screwed with me and I had all sorts of twisted unconscious dementor like images while I tried in vain to sleep. I can hear the train come by hear blaring its horn every 5 minutes and traffic is loud out. If I sleep at all it will be a miracle. Maybe if I am lucky I will get another hour or two. It won't be enough - that is all part of the karma here.
And still - oddly it seems this was what the real plan was all along, I just didn't realize it until now. I took a little detour and my soul led me to the core of my fears. It is on a deeper level - the fear of falling through the cracks, going homeless, living on the streets, falling off the path of employment and relative success - the fear of being one of those people begging for money. It terrifies me. I have never really known it, but when I fall off the normal plan or path, even for one instant - like I did tonight, I live that out - taste it anyways, even though you can never really know something like that until you actually are on the street. Sure I am in a smelly, cigarette smoke filled cheezy motel room - with a signed note that if I smoke here I will pay a fine of another 300 bucks (as if smoking could make this room smell any worse) , and I am sure it is a shitty part of town. But even so I have it pretty good compared to those who experience walking the streets every day of their life, or one of the millions upon millions that cannot eat enough to survive. I am too wound up to sleep, but I am using this as an opportunity to try to forgive myself, send love to myself, and accept the situation and myself in a time when the natural tendency is to do the opposite and call myself a big fucking idiot. This situation was my own karma and I created it, but blaming myself won't help. What's done is done. Initially I did want to say what a fucking idiot I was for doing this. Technically it was a mistake, but the more I think about it - it was no mistake at all. My shadow finally took over and brought me a little closer to the core of my fears. I may not arrive home for another 12 hours, but that's okay. I will get there when I need to.
Something tells me though - that maybe next time I have to deal with aiport hell again, I won't quite be so nervous. And I will probably think twice before sitting down at a gate without any flight information - and hell yes - I will be doublechecking my ticket for the gate! Once in a while when I get too comfortable, I seem to need something to shake me up a little to keep me on my toes. On that level - mission accomplished.
As follow up to last night's writing, I am back at the airport. One thing I notice is that even though you would think gate 4 and 5 would be next to each other, they are at about a 100 foot break separated by shops. Otherwise I probably would have heard the boarding announcement and caught my mistake. I am flying out at 11:45, only about 13 hours behind schedule. Talk about an erie coincidence - today's flight is actually at gate 4 - and yes I have doublechecked a few times. With about 20 possible gate numbers from 1 to 20, that is quite some odd probability. In hindsight, maybe I was just looking at the gate number for my future ticket...
