Telling Stories So That I Might Live
an oak tree and a canceled flight
Our family traveled to Rome at the end of Christmas break. It was our first international trip as a family, unless you count driving through Canada on our way to and from Alaska, which I do not.
We had a super interesting time in Italy and it was truly good in so many ways. But that’s not what I want to talk about right now. What I want to talk about right now is Time. Stick with me…..
While in Rome, we stayed at an airbnb in the Trastevere neighborhood, but toward the end of our trip we traveled by train to Naples where we stayed for two nights and three interesting days (Loved Naples!). The day before we were scheduled to fly home from Italy, we took the train back to Rome and stayed our final night at a hotel by the airport.
The morning of our departure we got up early, took the shuttle to the airport, allowing plenty of time, and expected to breeze through check-in, have time to get some Italian-style coffee and last gelato, before flying away.
We did not breeze through. Instead, we stood in line for two+ hours along with a lot of other people flying the Irish airline that morning. Having arrived early, we were at the front of the line, but due to a seemingly very poorly managed process, the line did not move at all for a very long time, and when it finally did begin to move it was molasses. Eventually we got through the check-in process, found our gate, got coffee and gelato, but didn’t really enjoy it. We were grumpy.
The flight left late, probably due to all the people still standing in line at departure time. The three hour flight from Rome to Dublin included zero in-flight service, unless you count the opportunity to pay for water, and we felt this pain most acutely as we rushed through all the checkpoints required of us in our short Dublin layover en route to our home country. We did not stop for a drink or to use the bathroom as we hustled on towards our next plane with no spare time.
Having started the day so badly, and the fact that we were flying an airline with minimal amenities,1 the long ride home felt longer and the situation was not improved by the hours we then spent bumping along in the sky. I have been on a lot of flights, some of them considerably longer than this 10+ hour flight, but I am really not a great flyer. I do okay, but when it gets bumpy I can’t concentrate on much besides the work of breathing. So it was a relief when at last! the lights of Las Vegas came into view. I looked down, eager to land, make our switch to a familiar airline, and take the final jaunt home.
But then, just before beginning our descent, the pilot took the intercom and told us that a windstorm in the air space below had backed up the air traffic and we’d have to stay in the sky for awhile.
We spent the next 45 minutes flying in circles on the bumpy sky highway above Vegas as we waited a turn for safe passage to land. When touchdown finally came, Ethan looked at me and said, that was the worst flight I’ve ever been on. Fair point. He’s flown quite a bit, but he had a bad cold that day, which made the whole story all the more rotten for him. He’d navigated the day without complaint, but this statement pretty much summed it all up.
As we taxied to our gate, I looked at my phone to see what had been happening down on the earth while we’d spent the day up in the sky. First up - a message from Alaska Airlines, saying that our next flight had been canceled and that they’d rebooked us on a flight to leave hours later than the one we’d been scheduled for. We were now scheduled to land back in Portland in the deep, deep of night.
None of the stuff of this day had been truly terrible (except perhaps Ethan’s cold), but it also had not gone great at any point. We were so tired of it all. Now here we were in Las Vegas, with nothing to do but keep on. We got off the plane and traipsed through the airport to our next gate where we collapsed into chairs and regrouped.
Bummed about the delay, I begin to think through our plans for getting from the Portland airport to home - a friend had been planning to come to get us in the late night, but now that our arrival was going to be considerably later, perhaps we should make a different way……
At about this point, I started noticing announcements coming from the intercom and I realized that the flight attached to the gate right next to us was scheduled to leave for Portland in about an hour, but it was marked delayed. In fact, the airplane wasn’t even at the gate.
Hmmmm……..
I went over and talked to the guy at the ticket counter and he filled in some details — The flight at that gate would indeed be going to Portland soonish, but it was currently sitting in Fresno waiting for a turn at the Vegas landing strip. As soon as they could schedule it to come back to Vegas, land, empty, and reload, it would go on to Portland.
Are there any more spots available on that plane?
Yep.
Can we have them?
Yep.
And so it was that the plane did soon come from Fresno. It unloaded its passengers, we got on, and flew to Portland. In the end, we arrived at practically the same time we’d been originally scheduled to land. Our friend picked us up. It was good to be home.
And in the process, I realized something —
When the flight from our original itinerary was canceled, the airline rebooked us on the next available option, inconvenient to us though it was.
When we were being rebooked, the flight we actually ended up taking home was not available. IT HAD NOT YET BEEN DELAYED. It should have been leaving just as we were arriving in Vegas.
But as it turned out, it did not. And it became a perfect solution to our problem.
I think about this story while I watch the oak tree out at the far edge of our property these days. The plum trees up close by the house are bursting with color as they embrace the spring of a new year while that silly oak tree is still hanging on to last year. It intrigues me that there appears to be such a discrepancy in the two different species as they attach to what I know as linear time. I wonder what my perception of the season and timing will be when the oak leaves have finally fallen and its buds that I can see in waiting begin to unfurl?
I think about both of these stories as I look at the For Sale sign that’s been out in front of our house since the end of October. So many things have changed in the context of our family’s life since we bought this house with my parents three years ago. So many things we couldn’t have known at the time. In many ways it’s been a good spot for us. It was our place to land on return from 10 years in Alaska. It is set within a farming community where I have lived out many iterations of my life. For me to move here felt something like coming home.
But the past three years have been hard on our family in unexpected ways. Among many other things, acclimating to life back here in the lower 48 took time and sucked energy. We’ve navigated some hard medical diagnoses that have tangled my parents. And now, as our boys to do the work of launching into young adulthood it has increasingly felt like this is not the right season of our lives to live in such a place as this. We do not need the orchard, the grapes, the greenhouse and the gigantic garden. We do not need the barn and pasture. We do not need the huge historic home. The activities and possibilities of such a place are the stuff of our lives maybe 10-15 years ago. But now, our boys have grown and are mostly gone. They have never felt like this is their home.
And so we made a decision for change.
When we put this house on the market in October, we expected to sell and move 30 minutes west to a neighboring town where we have found community in this past year. It is the town where our boys attend university, where 2/3 of my siblings live, and where David and I attend church. We drive over there multiple times a week. Back in October it was easy to imagine how great it would be to get settled into a house amidst the people and community where we had begun to find our place of belonging.
We packed our things into boxes and stored them in the garage, wondering if maybe we’d even be moved by Christmas. The anticipation of living and belonging in a community after years of fumbling and stumbling in search of such a thing made the disruption that comes with packing our stuff into moving boxes AGAIN worth it.
And yet. Market forces
and news cycles
and the season of winter
and a busy train line that runs along our property with horns blowing….
Here we are now in mid-March
Like oak leaves hanging on a tree
still waiting, past time.
Or so it seems.
It’s been disappointing. I had hoped to be gone from here before the orchard trees needed pruning for a new season. But alas, I have pruned them. The grapes await my clippers next. We had expected we’d move before needing to fortify the garden fence against our one-year-old 100-pound puppy, but as I watch the strawberry beds inside that fence — which had originally been built simply to keep our chickens and the wild rabbits out — I am feeling the impulse to tend the plants and prepare for the new growing season. So David bought new t-posts last weekend with plans to strengthen the fence against Rusty the Farm Dog. I will get in there and work the beds soon.
I believe a buyer will appear at some point along this way. We will figure out what is needed. But it’s hard to live through the in between space. Our stuff is boxed up. That’s no fun. Sometimes people make appointments with the realtors and they come and they look at the house. Sometimes they stay for a really long time. And ask a lot of questions. Our hopes begin to rise. And then the conversation stops.
Meanwhile, the calendar turns. The stuff of our family life continues to evolve. And so do our needs. I wonder what will be the shape of us when a buyer comes at last? And what will be available for us to buy in that particular moment?
I have a lot of questions as I live this uncomfortable, frustrating stretch of my life.
But then I tell myself a story about weary travelers and a canceled flight.
And I go out to the edge of our field and stand beneath an oak tree.
And I know
I don’t know what I don’t know in time.
Steady on.
…..and all that being true - how are you going to live?
On Sunday afternoon I planted snap peas.
Rusty The Farm Dog supervised my work—
Our stories give it a worse review than it deserves. We got what we paid for. It was a good deal.
I think perhaps you’ve read my words and know how much I can relate to your circumstances. May we find the beauty where it comes while we wait.