Breakdown of my travel day(s):
Portland to LA ~2.5 hrs
2 hr layover
LA to Seoul ~12.5 hrs
2 hr layover
Seoul to Singapore ~6 hrs
Singapore to Chennai ~4 hrs
Half hour at immigration
Taxi Chennai to Pondicherry ~3.5 hrs
= roughly 33 hours of travel! Spent reading, doodling, writing, sleeping, watching movies, eating airplane meals, meditating, sleeping, stretching, listening to music and podcasts, sleeping, staring out windows, and deeply contemplating life... The usual.
Hiccups throughout these long travel days included but we're not limited to:
- Taking the light rail to the Portland airport for the first time and ending up arriving much later than I had planned. When I saw the ticketing line I had to wait in to get my boarding pass, my heart sank. It extended beyond the cue lines and looked like it might take an hour to get through.
- Being paged twice at the next airport as I made my way to my gate, just to find that they couldn't print my boarding passes that I would need for my connecting flights.
- Arriving into the Singapore airport delayed enough to give me measly 20 minutes to get across the entire airport before the gate closed on my final flight.
Oh the world of travel! I was quickly reminded of the emotions that come with these kinds of travel experiences, and also the choice and empowerment that is offered in them.
My theme/intention/manta as of late is TRUST. More on this later but wow did this prove to be so necessary and true to get me through the stressful travel moments.
So that line at the Portland airport? Turned out it was only about 20 minutes long, leaving me enough time to not only get through security and to my gate but to also grab some Cafe Yumm for the flight.
The printer issue? They called someone from a different desk and had them bring over my boarding passes, fresh off the press.
My seemingly impossible connection time? Nice airport employee waiting with one of those white glorified golf carts to whisk off the few of us who were delayed right to our gates.
The choice to channel momentary trust over worry seems to be applicable in every situation. I mean I definitely had some worst case scenarios running through my mind, but I learned something here. It's okay to feel and acknowledge those, but then the challenge is in letting them go and not dwelling. Investing that worrying energy into trusting energy. Knowing it will all work out, because it has to work out.
Once I raced off my final airplane of the adventure, I was hit with the familiar dense air and within a few steps was reunited with a thin layer of humid sweat coating my entire body. Swollen feet. No toilet in sight. Mosquitos. Why am I here again?
Then the coast-hugging drive all the way down to my beloved Pondicherry dazzled my eyes. Here she was, in all her intensity and beauty. And here I was, ready to fall back under her spell.
