accidental emotions

There is a place floating in the sky, suspended in some unknown quiet in the clouds where like children we imagined them like soft comfy pillows you could dance around in thanks to many hours of watching 'the care bears' as a child. In this case, my 'caring meter' was far on the rainbow side, signaling all was congruent with earth and that precious delicate world of wishes and wonder. That is the place I go in the midst of turbulence and shaky atmosphere.

The other night I was happily embarking on a quick journey home for the first time since I moved. Everything seemed quite smooth, I questioned various emotions I might experience upon landing in the US  as I waded through a 2 hour line into customs but all in all I was appreciating the chance just to be home for a bit. We boarded, I settled in with a glass of wine and proceeded to wait on the tarmac for 2 hours due to mechanical problems. It didn't matter though, it was 230am and I was intermittently doing the shut eye head bounce. Finally as we took off I grabbed a few quick glances back at my city down below and with another glass of wine and dinner in sight the 11 hours to detroit would soon speed by like a time warp.  Then, a half hour into the trip like nails scratching a chalkboard the flight attendants began to scram and dinner disappeared on its common trajectory up the aisle. My aunt was a flight attendant for years and told me never to worry unless its obvious the staff is. They looked terrified. Scrambling around they awoke most everyone and finally the captain came on to make the emergency announcement. We had lost all radar and had to return to Sao Paulo immediately. There was a storm looming so everyone was on edge as the plane turned around and headed back with the ease of a roller coaster.

Its hard to describe the next half hour as I tried to make my way to that place, to find calm amidst chaos. All the emotions I worried about regarding being back in the US were trumped by making it safely to the ground. It was then a 30 hour blur of more customs (after the de-plane at 4am we had 250 people that had to go back through customs to get inside the airport with ONE official's window open), lots of extra hours spent in the sao paulo airport, a tasty McDonalds breakfast, standing in a two hour wait for the american airlines counter to open for the morning while I was shaking from drinking too much wine a few hours earlier, new farmer friends from north carolina that were also trying to get home to the same area and even offered to drive me as close to virginia as possible once we got stateside... it was a mixture of sunrises, sunsets, tears, smiles and new friendships that finally got me home. I almost forgot to capture what it felt like to be back for the first time knowing this isn't really home anymore... my new home down south... well I already miss it.

Thanks to the clouds, that place that saved my sanity...