Peas and Thank You

Still in Flight

I am a mighty traveler.

Well, actually I am a very tired, very reflective traveler.  Twelve hours spent getting to a plane, getting on a plane or getting away from a plane will do that to you.  And right now, I’d like to get far, far away from a plane.  At least for 36 hours.

I’m in Tampa at the invitation of my book publisher to speak at their annual sales conference.  Executives, editors and salesmen and women spend several days attending “executive, editor and salesmen and women meetings” and then celebrate making it through those meetings at a banquet dinner.  They don’t hire a band or a hypnotist to entertain them, they ask one of their upcoming authors to speak.

Guess who?

It’s a good opportunity for me to get the people who will be working with book retailers jazzed about my book.  It could be the difference between the Bargain Bin at the back of the store and a cardboard cutout of me at the front of store display.  Okay, maybe nobody wants that (except Pea Daddy for nights like tonight).

I’m not really nervous yet, I just hope to leave the room smiling, as in making sure the roomful of people feels good, not me physically walking out of the room grinning like an idiot, although that would be nice too.  Speaking of idiots, there’s a portion of my speech where I have written it in to sing a few lines of song lyrics.  Pea Daddy and I have a bet going on whether or not I’ll actually do it.  Mi mi mi mi mi!

I haven’t travelled a lot, so I tend to overpack.

I overpack pets.

She didn’t actually come, but she did crawl up on my lap for the first time in five years last night.  And now I mutually fear that hell has frozen over and that I might die.

I overpack food.

My two favorite things I brought are the Just Veggies snacks, which are like the gateway drug and then the Bombay Curry Kale chips which are my full blown addiction.  I also have a bag of each in my suitcase for the ride home.  Because nothing gets you through an eight hour plane ride like dehydrated vegetables.

I overpack entertainment.

A wide range of fluffy magazines, My Sister’s Keeper and Eat, Pray, Love.  I am a speed reader, yet still haven’t made it past “Italy” in Eat, Pray, Love.  I was eating, I was praying, but I wasn’t loving.  I was even wondering why I bought it.  I guess the cardboard cutout sucked me in.

I was hoping not to need any of the entertainment. Believe it or not, I was hoping for a talkative seatmate.  I am that person that tries to make best friends with the checkout clerk, the gas station attendant and the airplane seatmate.  But I’m no creep, forcefully breathing dehydrated vegetables in your face and showing you pictures of her kids.  If you don’t reciprocate, I leave you alone.  Unfortunately, the older man sitting next to me was hearing-impaired and thus didn’t hear my witty story about the time I left my purse in the back or an airplane seat.  Nor did he hear my request to get up to go to the bathroom the four times I yelled it.  The teenage kid across the aisle had to smack him and say, “She’s got to go!!!!”  Bless him.

With a relieved bladder and an open mind, I picked up Eat, Pray, Love.  I ate (dehydrated vegetables).  I prayed (because of the blizzard-like conditions in Denver).  And I loved.

When Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about needing to clear out space in her mind to let God in, when she wrote about needing to control each moment, even the spiritual moments, when she wrote about her inability to get through meditation, to get through lunch without a single moment of truly being still, I “Mmm-hmmmed!” so loudly the guy in the seat next to me heard.  And instinctively got up to let me go to the bathroom.

It’s easy to be reflective, spiritually honest and perfectly still when you are 20,000 feet in the air, staring out the window at snow-capped mountain peaks.

I vowed to be grateful for the time I had to myself these next couple days, to enjoy the opportunity and to try my very best to be still.

Has hell frozen over?

No, that was just Denver.

My renewed spirit won’t let me be upset that I arrived in Tampa two hours late, that’ it’s now 1 a.m.

I’m going to be still.

At least until my Pilates class at 9.