Moving Parts

A Brief Encounter with a Moving Target

The idea was to write a follow-up to last week’s post to be entitled, “Pilgrim’s Progress: The Sequel.” Sic transit gloria mundi. There would be, I surmised, many images, many stories to pursue on the trip from El Dorado, California, gold rush country, to Edina, Minnesota in the Twin Cities west metro. After all, I passed through the airports in Sacramento, Seattle, and finally Minneapolis itself, including the Lindbergh Terminal, named for the famous aviator and Nazi sympathizer. The possibilities were incalculable.

But I was too exhausted to notice any of the particulars. Sleep had not wanted any part of me for several days and the whole enterprise of setting out like the Donner Party in reverse was starting to seem ill-conceived. The day was gray and foggy, unremarkable in every way. All the Delta passengers were on their phones except the small children who were crying. The adults were, on the whole, really large. I ate a very dry blueberry scone in the first airport and something impersonating Chinese food in the second. I considered it a victory that I only got a small amount of soy sauce on my pants trying to open one of those recalcitrant little packets. At the newsstand, I stood on tip-toes to grab a copy of the latest Atlantic because, as you undoubtedly know, the good magazines are on the highest rack, way out of reach, to allow the prime marketing space to be occupied by People, Car and Driver and for the ladies, House Beautiful. Later on the plane, I would break out the Atlantic and read it back to front, beginning with the least nightmarish subject matter, a review of Prince Harry’s book Spare, an article about Judy Blume and all her twelve-year old correspondents and a piece about the internal politics of the Oscars. I had no idea, Yankee that I am, that Spare is a reference to the fact that Harry is the second son, a back-up royal ready to step up in the event of the loss of William. All this before I got to the featured story about domestic terrorism. You have to be well into the second flight and reasonably sure that you’re going to reach your destination safely before tackling that one.

Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash

Both flights were uneventful. There were minimal delays and no extended turbulence. All I had to do was ask the nice young man behind me to get my very heavy carry-on down from the overhead compartment, grab my also very heavy handbag and my two jackets and head for baggage claim where my son would be waiting for me. But there was an escalator involved and I could not negotiate that maneuver, dragging the wheeled bag behind me on to the disappearing staircase with my right hand while trying to hold on to the railing with the two jackets over my left arm. I saw the escalator escape from under my feet and I knew that I was going to go down with it, only not standing upright. Someone behind me yelled that I should just lie down and let the machine take me wherever it was going. And having no choice that’s what I did. I went down the escalator in the Charles Lindbergh Terminal on my belly, arriving in the midwest bruised and bewildered.

And these are the first lessons of my solo journey into America. Let go. Be humbled, from the Latin meaning grounded, from the earth. Something made me prostrate myself on the escalator, surrender to the strangeness of this time in my life. Unhinged and untethered, topsy turvy, tossed and turned upside down.

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On Sunday, March 26th, paid subscribers will have access to our new monthly feature, Many Voices. The special guest for March will be the poet Marjorie Power. Marjorie has published four collections and numerous chapbooks. To read more about Marjorie Power and her poetry, visit www.marjoriepowerpoet.com.

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Copies of my 2019 essay collection, Twilight Time: Aging in Amazement, are available directly from me (signed) or from Amazon or your local bookseller.

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