Zen and the Art of Airport Maintenance

For those of you too young to have been reading hip "pop" pyschology in the early '70s, a trendy book was "Zen and the Art of Morotcycle Maintenance." It was a novel written by a man who took to his Harley with his son on a cross-country road trip. He was trying to get into the "zen" of it all, roughly defined as that state of being happy and peaceful and living fully in the moment. But the inevitabilities of life kept interfering: motorcycle breakdowns, bad weather, no motel rooms, etc., etc., etc. His conclusion: life is just imperfect on this planet and we all have to deal with that. Some of us deal with it unhappily and others seem to rise above it all and still find "zen," or inner happiness, despite those pesky inevitabilities.

So, anyway, I chose to be an observer of the approaches of these two classes of people recently in two experiences at airports.

On my way to Tucson last Wednesday night, Hurricane Dolly created mass chaos at airports all over the South and West. My flight was delayed to Denver, then the inevitable domino effect: I missed my flight to Tucson. I had to pay to stay at an expensive hotel in Denver because all cheap motel rooms were filled up in the whole city. I got a total of 3 hours of sleep.

Then, on the return trip, I flew to Phoenix but then got stranded there because there were "mechanical problems." (Thank God we didn't find out about those "mechanical problems" after takeoff!) So, once again, I was stranded overnight. I missed a television appearance I was supposed to make on Monday morning in Salt Lake. I was late getting to work, and again I was out more money.

OK, so I am really not writing this post to whine. Really.

What was interesting was to watch people's reactions both times while standing in line for hours trying to get rescheduled. Some folks paced and worried. Some folks were angry and pounded their fists on the counters. One guy, a young gentleman sporting skulls and snakes tattoos, threatened loudly "I'm going to "f--- you up!!!" Some went into an empty corner and slept on the floor.

Regardless of our various reactions, all of us got onto the very same rescheduled flights, all of us arrived at the same delayed times.

I remembered a little plaque that was on the wall of the home of my Grandma Greenhaw. It had a clown face on it and these words: "Don't take life too seriously. You'll never get out of it alive anyway." My Grandma Greenhaw was a woman who reached "zen" every day. She found joy in things like sliced ripe tomatoes fresh out of her garden and putting pigtails in her grandaughters' hair. She was a person who was a joy just to be around. If she had been in Denver or in Phoenix stranded, she would have no doubt taken it in stride and found "zen" in playing with a stranded new mother's toddler or doing a crossword puzzle to kill time.

For me, I tried to achieve "zen" by repacking my suitcase in an airport restroom because my stash of ripe prickly pears picked at the Hicks hacienda had leaked all over the contents of my suitcase. . . . Yikes! . . .

BTW, you're all getting Prickly Pear - Strawberry jam for Chirstmas. I'm thinking of naming it "Zen jam."