An Evolving Life. Gut Wrenching
Gut Wrenching
Listen to your gut. How often have you heard that? How often have you not listened?
Last Spring an idea sprung up amongst my Syracuse University friends—it’s time for a reunion, just us girls!! Come here, come to my new AirBnb in Sonoma, one friend so graciously offered.
Wonderful! we all responded. And after a torrent of emails, we agreed on the end of October, high season just after the grape harvest!
As the summer progressed and it came time to book my flight requiring a layover in Dallas, my forehead creased, my stomach clenched. A weight descended.
I don’t think I can make it, I told my friends, it’s too far to go for just three days.
But we’ll miss you, please come, they pleaded one by one.
Months passed. The day before departure there was news that wildfires sparked by faulty utility equipment were spreading through Geyserville in Northern Sonoma. Already in route from the East End to New York City to spend the night with my daughter in Brooklyn closer to LaGuardia airport, one of the women, here from Australia, began texting alternate plans to stay in San Francisco instead.
She felt strongly; I thought it was a good idea. We then decided to wait and see what the others thought.
Hours later, a consensus had developed to go anyway; our host had not called it off, was leaving the decision up to us and anyway, the fire was 40 miles north. Having lived through Hurricane Gloria, Bob, Sandy and the Pine Barrens fire of ‘95, I decided WTF!
Then, after dinner that evening, my flight was cancelled twice due to bad weather. I weeped as my daughter fiddled with her phone finding a third option through Phoenix, departing from JFK, however, much further away. At that point, I should have taken a walk, gathered my wits and said, “No!” But I didn’t.
Standing on a dark city corner at 4:30 the next morning, the Via car was delayed twice. I don’t want to go, I cried but again didn’t listen to myself. My daughter had ordered an Uber that arrived in a jiffy and raced me to Queens.
There the plane sat on the tarmac for an hour. Needless to say, I missed my connection from Phoenix to Santa Rosa. On line at Customer Assistance, I was now weeping out loud and into the phone. I want to go home!, I told my husband. You’ll laugh about this with your friends, he said.
He was right. We did laugh a lot. I finally made it to Kenwood via San Francisco and a two-hour bus ride through the parched, desert-covered hills of Sonoma. Climate Change, inescapable on all coasts. Maybe that’s what I’m here to see, what I must continue to write about, I thought.
Before that, waiting for that bus, relieved to be standing on solid ground in the California sunshine, a kindred spirit joined me. Bearded, sweet smile, BERNIE button pinned to his cap, a few years older than me. It felt like he had appeared just for me.
Delirious and happy for company, I spouted my ridiculous story.
But you’re smiling, he said, and you’ve got such great energy.
I do? I replied thinking that the only thing I was emitting was odor from my armpits.
It’s because I made it and my luggage did too! I raced to baggage claim and it actually appeared!
Well something good is going to come out of this, he said grinning. It would have been better if you lost your luggage and your friends had to share.
Yeah, maybe I’ll write it like that, I laughed.
And he was right! I’ve never been happier to be home and never more aware of all the work we have to do to save our planet. Two days later—after four meals, no power, no water, a false evacuation warning at 4 a.m. and a flight delayed for hours due to a missing pilot—I arrived home at 3:30 a.m.
Still recovering, here’s a sketch done from my gut two days after my return. It’s called Relief Too.
Please click on the image to enlarge.
Relief Too
An Evolving Life Series
2019 Posts
Gut Wrenching (This one)
2018 Posts
Learn more about how it all began! Click here to read An Evolving Life posts from 2018.
