Tag Archives: travel

Mar25

Under the Surface

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When I’m at an airport, I often wonder where people are going to or from and why. Airports provide some good people watching, especially for a writer’s imagination. Sometimes it’s obvious like the energized children with Disney apparel headed to catch a flight with their families to Orlando. I once saw a young couple on a flight and the guy was fiddling with his wedding band constantly. It’s new, I thought. Sure enough, they’d gotten married the night before and were on the first leg of their honeymoon. The business travelers with only a briefcase or backpack these days are usually easy to spot. 

But I’ve also wondered about the sad reasons people fly. Someone is going home after visiting their significant other who just broke up with them. Someone is traveling to see their loved one for the last time or for their funeral. I finally fell into the sad category last week. In the middle of the night after conversations with my brother and mother, it became obvious that my dad was at the end of his earthly journey. So, at 3:00 am, my husband Ben booked a flight for me for later in the morning. 

I wondered how I was going to keep myself together in the airport. When one of my kids called to discuss the situation while I waited in the security line, I started crying and said I had to get off the phone so I could at least get through the necessary steps to reach the flight. I don’t think anyone noticed because we were all facing forward, and I wiped away the tears as quickly as possible. I made it without crying until I secured my rental car and was completely alone on the two-hour drive to the hospital. Two days later, I flew home having said goodbye to my father. I had to prepare for the family road trip back for the funeral over the weekend. 

I’m certain I will write more about my dad’s passing later when I’ve had more time to process. About the outpouring of love from family and friends. But right now, a week later, I just can’t help but come back to a lesson I’ve learned over and over and of which I still need to be reminded. Unless you are intimately involved in someone’s story, you have no idea what another person is going through, so be kind. Give them grace. Allow for the idea that someone may be dealing with problems under the surface that you know absolutely nothing about. 

I was on the verge of tears during my travels and had every reason to be in that state. I hid my fragility behind a very thin mask.  Thankfully, my travels went smoothly because if one thing had gone wrong, I might’ve crumbled. If one person had been unkind, I might’ve broken down. We must remember that we may be the difference between someone falling apart or keeping it together when they feel they must. We may never know when our generosity of spirit could make the way smoother for another. But perhaps we should assume that we are the ones who can ease another’s pain, whether we are aware of their struggle or not.    

Mar11

Taking the Heavy Backpack Off

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My kids’ school backpacks are heavy. I strain when I pick up the backpacks to move them from one place to another in our house. They carry them every day, all day at school. While they have lockers in their music and athletic classes for their instruments and gym clothes, they no longer use lockers like we did back in the day. They don’t carry heavy textbooks anymore either, but they do carry their computers, binders, notebooks, papers, lunchboxes, and water bottles. They don’t have anywhere else to put the materials they aren’t using in the moment. Everything is in the backpack.

When my twenty-year-old daughter Riley started middle school in 2015, she was so excited to have a locker and shopped to decorate it with shelves and mirrors and pictures. This was such a big deal amongst sixth grade girls that it almost felt like a competition to see who could have the most elaborate or cutest locker. I drew the line at locker safe wallpaper or a locker chandelier. Her locker decorating desire waned as she got older, but when Covid hit, lockers were eliminated to limit close contact and the spread of the virus. The students no longer hung out by the lockers or touched the locker doors constantly. But after they returned to school fully, the lockers did not come back into use. I assume it became one less thing for school administrators to monitor for prohibited paraphernalia, and that was fine with them. And that may be the correct call, but the result is that four years later, the kids carry their school lives on their backs. 

We’ve all heard about the baggage we carry from the past into the present. We often speak of that baggage with respect to our current relationships and how the past colors the now. Or how we sabotage ourselves today with the failures from yesterday. Baggage sounds big though – like we have a roller bag, roomy suitcase, or steamer trunk full of old problems that burden us still. But the backpack symbolizes the everyday to me. The daily worries and tasks that seem never ending. The logistics of schedules that are too crowded and busy. The anxieties about whether all our people are okay. The stress of the regular routine and the dizziness that comes when those routines are disrupted. 

I think we’re all carrying heavy backpacks. And we don’t have lockers in which we can place some of our obligations temporarily. Put some things away and take them out when we are ready to deal with them. There are no shelves in cute, decorated spaces so that we can compartmentalize our issues. I’ve known people who say they can compartmentalize, but I’ve never seen anyone do it well in reality.   

The only time my kids can put their backpacks down at school is when they are sitting in class or sitting at lunch. And they take them off when they get home. I wonder if we can take a cue from them. Even if we must carry the heaviness of life during most of the day, can we put it down for a while when we sit to have a conversation with a friend or when we take a break to rest? Can we make our homes into sanctuaries where everyone can throw off their burdens for a while? If we keep in mind that everyone is carrying their heavy backpacks, perhaps we can invite them to sit with us to lessen the strain even if only for a few minutes. And when they put their backpacks down to sit with us, we get to put ours down too.