Yesterday was one of my usual days. Dashing to airport at 4AM for a 6AM flight. A little different in that I was flying the worst airline in America..USAir. Got the airport a little before 5AM, got my boarding pass with little fuss, stood in line for TSA. After the obligatory comments by the TSA guy about my name, "Are you Jolly today?" Wow! I haven't heard that one!
Over the past several years I have developed a system for going through security. First of all, I only wear slip-on shoes. My 3-1-1 articles are in an outside pocket of my rollerboard. But I send my backpack through first, then my laptop, then the bin with my shoes/belt/wallet/cellphone/3-1-1 bag, then my rollerboard. Most of the airports are now using the body-scanner, rather than the metal-detector, so I keep my boarding pass in my hand, dutifully step into the scanner, raise my hands over my head and stand still from 3 seconds. If the TSA folks are getting their giggles by looking at us via the scanner, they aren't giggling much about my image. Let's just say they pass me through there pretty quick, no mulligans. Then when I get to the other side and grab my stuff, my laptop goes quickly into my backpack and slung out of the way over my shoulder, I stuff the 3-1-1 bag back into the outside pocket and set the rollerboard on the ground, then shoes dropped on the floor so I can slip them on while putting on my belt, followed by slipping my wallet in my pocket, and snapping my cellphone to my belt. It took me longer to type this process than it does for me to actually accomplish the procedure. According to my youngest, I have become one of those impatient business travelers. I prefer to think that I simply have a system that works, so get out of my way while you fumble around for all your stuff.
Yesterday, however, something happened that completely disrupted my routine.
The power went out. TSA was completely shut down. I had exited the body-scanner. My four pieces of luggage and bins were stuck smack in the middle of the X-ray tube. I would say that I would normally be standing there, looking at my watch, making sure everyone knew that this was a huge problem. However, I don't wear a watch. So I stood there with only the 6 articles of clothes (Socks count as two) and no ID, no cellphone, no money, no credit cards, no nothing. I was stuck between two worlds, the outside world prior to security, and the 20' or so of being made secure, and the world where all have been cleared and are secure. I was a few feet away, yet stuck at the mercy of the TSA.
As I stood there, holding my pants up like a teenage hip-hop star, looking back down the tube for my various security blankets, a scenario popped into my head. What if I had to make my way with only what I had at that moment? My identity would have to be established. Could I convince the folks around me that my worth was wound up in who I was and not what I have (which was not much at the moment)? Whom could I trust? Who would trust me? Where would I go? How would I fend for myself? It was an insightful moment. I realized that the traits and habits and personal makeup would have to be enough, that my gifts and my foibles had all made through Security, but none of the crutches that I had come to rely on. I am me whether I have the little card from Texas to prove it or not. It was a moment of self-reflection that was long overdue.
They had to snake my stuff out of the X-ray tube with a long pole. Then a young man had to completely take my backpack and rollerboard apart for scanning on the machine looking for bomb residue. Each clothing article was carefully inspected. I remarked to the young man that he was lucky that I was outbound and everything was clean. Coming home would have been an entirely different story for both of us. He seemed to appreciate the import of the statement. He simply said, "No kidding." We both chuckled about it and I realized that this would be the way I would rebuild my identity, humor with human interaction. Sharing the events with a philosophy not bound up in "Why me?" but "Why not me?"
Finally I was allowed into the promised land and allowed to catch my flight, my stuff back in place, my clothes unpacked and repacked (hurriedly) my cellphone and link to the world by my side once again. But it made me look at my stuff a little differently. It is stuff, not me. The only way this could have been more revealing would have been a strip search in full view. Nakedness can be attained without taking your clothes off, it is the stripping away of all the supports and crutches we have devised to "clothe" us from the world.
Godspeed out there to the travelers on the journey. Every once in while we need to take an inventory without our stuff and see what we have.
Don
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