After a glorious five days on the coast of Maine visiting my parents, I began my long journey home on Saturday. That journey should have taken about 14 hours to complete. Instead, it was about 40. Thunder and hailstorms from Massachusetts to D.C. created some of the biggest flight interruptions in a really long time. Flights were delayed and canceled, including two of mine. There was also a truly wild incident involving a pontoon plane blowing out its tires on the runway at Bangor, requiring emergency response and shutting down the runway long enough to make us miss our flight window into Philadelphia. Eventually the Philly airport shut down completely, so I was stranded in Maine for the night, and told I wouldn’t be able to get home for two days.
Naturally, this created an immense amount of stress. I work so many jobs that involve so much effort to cover or cancel at the last minute, so that was stressful and made me feel guilty (which it shouldn’t have, but that’s another story). My friends had been rotating care for my dog while I was away, and he wasn’t feeling well, so they were all tired and burnt out and I hated to ask them to keep up the effort for another day or two. And the feeling of not being in control is always hard for me, finding ways to regulate my nervous system when I don’t know what’s going to happen next.
On top of my own feelings and responses to the situation, I was surrounded by so many angry and stressed out humans. It wears on you, when almost everyone around you is in a bad mood. Travel can bring out the worst in people, especially the folks who don’t do it as often and maybe don’t always understand all the ins and outs of what causes delays and cancellations and how the whole big picture works. It’s tough to listen to people scream and yell at the wrong people. It’s hard not to want to help, but difficult to support others while also trying to figure out your own next move. I spent a lot of time on Saturday talking with folks in the airport, trying to help them, trying to subtly calm them down or offer them suggestions. Oftentimes, helping other people helps me to calm down.
It was a tough day, navigating all this. At the end of it, I had a flight confirmed for the next day out of Boston, a rental car reserved for the next morning to take me 5 hours south, and a hotel with a restaurant in it where I could eat (and have a well-earned glass of wine) and rest for the night. I left the airport feeling tired and disappointed and stressed, yes, but also grateful for the resources that allowed me to choose all these options.
While I was waiting for food and drinks at the hotel bar, I found myself chatting with the few other people in there who were mostly stranded alongside me. But there was one couple who wasn’t. They told me they were from Florida, traveling to Prince Edward Island (cue the Anne of Green Gables miniseries soundtrack!), a place I’ve always wanted to go. I told them I’d just come from Mount Desert Island and the coast. They told me how much they love MDI, and that they’d discovered it years back, through their work with a local research institute - the same one my dad worked for. It didn’t take long to connect the dots - they knew and worked closely with my dad. Before I knew it, I was getting a giant hug and a kiss on the head from a delightful couple I’d never met, but who told me my dad is one of their favorite people in the world.
What are the odds? It was the most random and wonderful thing that’s happened to me in a while. Because I had heard about this couple! They were part of a major chapter in my dad’s career and life. If I hadn’t had canceled flights and travel drama, I’d never have ended up at that hotel, and I’d never have met these two.
It really got me thinking, after we’d called my dad (what a joyful, hilarious surprise that was!) and chatted a while and said goodnight and wished each other safe travels: this is why we should all talk to strangers.
All day, really, there had been evidence of this, despite the anger and fatigue so many travelers and workers were experiencing all around me. Talking to each other helped. I know for sure I was able to help several people at the airport, and I saw others doing the same. I chatted with a bunch of hunters who were literally transporting weapons and meat back from their week in the North Woods. I helped a few women who had spent the week in Bar Harbor eating lobster and climbing around Acadia National Park. I talked to people who I had absolutely nothing in common with, whose temperaments weren’t as calm and friendly as mine, and I helped them. And helping them helped me.
And at the hotel, despite being exhausted, I kept talking to people. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have realized I was standing just a few feet away from a close friend of my father’s. We wouldn’t have talked. They wouldn’t be getting together for dinner in a few days.
We live in a world that’s full of anger and division. We all know that, we’re all seeing it and we’re all concerned about it, but it often feels like no one knows what to do about it. I think one of the answers is talking to each other. Talking to people we don’t know. Finding out who we’re standing next to in the grocery store or seated by on a 6 hour flight. You don’t have to become best friends, but being curious and kind can really open up some amazing opportunities and unforgettable moments.
That hunter I talked to? He was sitting by me on the plane when we were stuck on the tarmac for hours. I bet we not only have very little in common - I bet he’s someone I would have avoided on paper. But when we got off that plane, he said to me, “I could not have asked for a better person to sit next to on this plane.” That’s powerful. This is how we could change the world. By talking to each other.
The pandemic has made people more isolated, more wary, less trusting, and I believe a lot less happy. There’s a way through it, and it’s connection. It’s not staying in our homes alone with our families and pets, avoiding others. It’s not writing each other off because we have different views or lifestyles. It’s remaining open and curious, being kind. Saying hello. Telling someone you like their shirt or asking them if they need help getting their suitcase in the overhead bin. It’s these micro moments in our days, when we bump into each other and make little ripples in the energetic fabric of the universe.
Talk to strangers. Offer a helping hand or a friendly word. Even though it’s hard. You have no idea what magic you could discover.
xo,