I’m ruined but it was SO MUCH FUN!

09 Dec 2025 1 Comment

by writingforselfdiscovery in Football Tags: , , , ,

I guess it’s good sometimes, not to know what you missed. It’s a place of acceptance, content with what is because there’s no awareness of anything else. The safe familiar bubble affords no surprises, avoids restless yearnings for what isn’t there, fosters predictability.

But when an alternate reality comes crashing through that sleepy haze, it’s wake-up time! That’s what 80,000 roaring fans did to me.

I’d never been to a college football game like this one. Leave it to Southern Hospitality, and an invitation to spend the weekend at a friend’s lake house to change all that.

Early on a Saturday morning, my daughter, two granddaughters, and I, loaded our overnight bags and settled in for the 4-hour drive north. Fall was doing its thing – trees were in full color and lowlands melted into mountains, gently, seamlessly.

As we neared our destination, it was clear that these weren’t typical weekend lake cabins. Gated drives led to architectural wonders, two, three, and four stories high. Wow! I said, over and over again. Wow! Wow! Wow!

When we pulled into our friend’s leaf-covered drive, her home did not disappoint. She’s an architect and had designed every intimate detail of the house herself.

Three generations of hunting rifles adorned the wall of the Bourbon Room – that cozy loft featured an impressive collection of whiskey brands, both familiar and rare.

From the home’s many windows, Lake Keowee stretched for miles – clear, crystalline blue.

After touring the premises, it was time to head to Clemson College. Once again, my shabby expectations were put to shame when I experienced tailgating southern style. Securing a prime spot for a tent costs tens of thousands of dollars in donations plus a purchase of season tickets. Our hosts had two gigantic tents with orange Tiger paw prints in keeping with their team’s mascot.

There were tables of catered food: beef sliders, pork sliders, chicken salad in phyllo dough, pigs in blankets, every kind of fruit, potato salad, homemade potato chips (I could have eaten all of those chips by myself. They were delicious!) Dessert trays of cookies, bars, and brownies were far too abundant. Soft drinks filled some coolers while others overflowed with beer, White Claw, and similar offerings. Of course, there were bottles of vodka, gin, tequila and appropriate mixers for those as well.

At one point in the afternoon, a sampling of the Clemson band entertained us from a balcony high above the parking lot drumming up team spirit and shouting C – L – E – M – S – O – (pause…wait for it…) N! We newbies learned fast and screamed our lungs out with the best of them.

Then………

The stadium! The fireworks! The marching bands – their formations and rousing music! The cheerleaders, twirlers, football players, and…

THE GAME!!!!!

Fireworks exploded into the sky at both ends of the stadium every time the Tigers scored a touchdown. Since Clemson won 45 to Furman’s 10, we were treated to fiery skyrockets multiple times that afternoon.

I now have an understanding of the sensory overload, the explosive energetic potency of 80,000 people sandwiched together for a single cause. Even without the deafening sounds, the visual by itself was monumentally magnificent. Heart-stopping.

So, you see? I’m ruined. Now I know what I’ve been missing all these years and I crave more. Not the TV variety – it’s really not the game that delights me, although I love to cheer for the winning team. I want to be part of the thrill of all those people having so freaking much fun!!!

Kick Up The Fire!

12 Nov 2025 7 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in adventure, South Carolina Lowcountry Tags: , , ,

I never intended to move to South Carolina. My cottage on The Farm in northern Minnesota was supposed to be it, my cozy nest near family and elderly friends where I could retire from the world and just BE.

But true to the saying: Change is the only constant, and true to my wandering nature, what was supposed to just be, just isn’t.

My Achilles Heel, the Sirens’ call that, even at this advanced age I cannot resist, is a new horizon. It’s not a greener pasture. The pastures at home in Minnesota are emerald, unless they’re white. The irresistible urge, the inescapable force, is the unquenchable lust for adventure.

It’s not my fault. I inherited genes from Norwegian ancestors whose Viking ships were seen on distant shores as they explored new lands. For me, travel is not a choice. It’s an obsession, a drive so strong that even the slightest possibility of a new door opening has me packed and on my way.

That’s how it was when the opportunity to move here arose. Spontaneous is too slow a word for how quickly I zipped up my carry-on and said goodbye. I left everything behind: my house, my car, my social network, my life, and moved into an empty apartment on the fourth floor of a complex overlooking South Carolina’s Lowcountry.

I used to stare dreamily across fields of spring hay maturing to summer gold, watch V-shaped flights of geese honking their way south in the fall, then endure months of snow-covered everything. Here, the salt marshes present a thrilling new landscape. Atlantic Ocean tides, pulled by lunar threads, collect in ponds bordered by swaying cordgrass.

Snowy egrets float aloft, their long black legs and yellow feet skim the water as they hunt their prey. Then slowly, the moon departs. Sparkling pools become sand once more, and flocks of salt marsh sparrows peck industriously, probing the mud for food. So it goes, day after day, the ebb and flow of life.

Ben Sawyer Boulevard spans the distance from solid land here in Mt. Pleasant, across the marsh and the Intracoastal Waterway to Sullivan’s Island. A bridge swings open for boat traffic too tall to pass underneath.

Many times a day it disconnects us, halting traffic as some no-name barge lumbers through. There’s nothing more frustrating than showing up late for an appointment on the island because water traffic took precedence.

It’s one of the adjustments to a more laid-back, southern lifestyle. I take it in, processing, pondering. This transition has been all-consuming. I’m glad I’m here, deeply involved in the day-to-day of my daughter’s and granddaughters’ lives. But, trust me in this, there’s never a dull moment.

Vikings set out to conquer. Maybe I did, too – conquer loneliness, boredom, a sense of purposelessness – the terrifying thought that this was it, the end, the last chapter.

Here, there’s no chance that I’ll go gentle into that good night, not with the unleashed exuberance of my grands! Thanks anyway, Dylan Thomas. Philip Larkin’s poem captures my situation more aptly: Kick up the fire, and let the flames break loose!

Ah! The alarm I set is ringing. It’s reminding me that it’s time to pick the kids up from school. See what I mean? I have purpose!

A Dive into Literary Fiction – Exploring The Salt Line

15 Aug 2025 Leave a comment

by writingforselfdiscovery in Writing Tags: , , , ,

From time to time, I stumble upon a book that leaves an indelible mark. The Signature of all Things, The Ibis Trilogy (three books), Krakatoa, and many others. I’ve kept a record of everything I’ve read since 2019. There are 195 books on that list. 

The latest is The Salt Line by Elizabeth Spencer. You know how you breeze through some novels without really thinking. Others keep you suspended on the edge of your chair, gut churning, not wanting to know what happens but needing closure. 

Then there is that lofty genre appropriately called literary fiction. It is the brilliant crafting of sentences, the complexity of characters, and the thematic depth of a plot that commands consistent attention, or you find yourself going back several pages to pick up where you lost the trail.

The Salt Line is an exquisite work of that genre. It’s difficult to call anything similar to mind. I’ve rarely found myself paying attention to every word because there were no extras. No fluff. To follow the intricacies of the narrative, I couldn’t skim. The characters were multifaceted to the extent that my loyalties shifted as the author developed and expanded upon their personalities.  

Arnie Carrington, the protagonist, is a former professor and 1960s campus radical. After Hurricane Camille devastated the coast between Biloxi, Mississippi, and Gulfport, he is eager to rebuild and attract new business to the area. The characters in The Salt Line are busy reckoning with old ghosts, liberating repressed passions, and figuring out life after trauma. 

True to the genre, Spencer doesn’t offer neatly tied-up endings for the individuals in her story. It is more about the unfolding of their journeys. None of them remains unchanged. 

In that way, it mirrors us. We, too, are changed by the paths we take and the choices we make. Some of us are intentional about who we are and where we want to go. Our goal is clear, and the steps to achieve it are orderly and systematic. Others of us are dreamers. We sense adventure and trust destiny to show us the way. And there are the lost souls who wander without a goal and without a dream, allowing life to happen to them. All types find representation in The Salt Line. Perhaps you’ll see yourself there.

Turn Myself Around Again

01 Aug 2025 12 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

There’s a song, Fall Down as the Rain, that my daughter, Jessa, sang at my father’s funeral with Dan, her partner, who was also the guitarist. It’s about the seasons of life and the inevitable beauty of death. Today, that song has been playing in my head. I’ve turned myself around yet again.

………………………….

I wanted to write. I needed to write. But I was hopelessly uninspired until I started reading Unreasonable Hospitality. 

The book tells the story of a restaurateur in New York City who wanted his restaurant to be extraordinary; the best in the world. The first year, at the annual awards ceremony for the fifty best restaurants, his was number 50. He agonized over how he could improve his game. The chef was exceptional, and the food was already exquisitely gourmet. He decided he would focus on the guest experience, upping the ante to provide unreasonable hospitality to his patrons. And if they were to be treated to the ultimate in service and graciousness, the staff would also deserve to be deeply respected and appreciated. 

He devised a plan and implemented it. The following year, his restaurant was voted number one.

Reading his story made me aware that the events of the past few weeks have jettisoned my life into the realm of the extraordinary once again. Suddenly, I wanted to write about it, to tell anyone who would listen about this sudden, wild, and spontaneous adventure that came out of nowhere.

Take right now, for instance. I’m sitting in a 4th-floor, luxury apartment overlooking the coastal lowlands of South Carolina. At high tide, the view from my balcony looks like this.

Low tide drains those sparkling pools.

This is a trial run, a test to see if a permanent move here is viable for me. I’ve been three winters and almost four summers in the remote northland of Minnesota, where my neighbors are my sister, brother-in-law, and an old friend of the family who moved there shortly after I did. Acres of field and forest stretch between our little community and the next house.

I fell asleep to the lonely wailing of coyotes and woke up in an alternate universe – turned myself around again.

When I landed in Charleston, my daughter whisked me across two bridges into the town of Mt. Pleasant and this complex of 224 units. I instantly had new neighbors. From the balcony, I could watch bikinis worn by tanned, toned, young bodies strolling to the pool, and slow-shuffling gray heads walking their shihtzus and corgies. Instead of the mile-long, dead-end dirt road to my little cottage on the farm, Ben Sawyer Boulevard, with its non-stop beach traffic, hummed day and night. 

I’m revisiting old prejudices. Whatever I had against air-conditioning in the past is passé. With the heat and humidity hovering in the nineties 24/7, AC moves from nice to necessary! I’ll acclimate. It just takes time. But I will say this: it beats nine months of Minnesota winter any way you slice it! 

Despite sucking soupy salt air into my lungs with each breath, I love it here! Everything is easy and accessible. The Publix grocery store is a few blocks away. There’s a Mexican restaurant even closer with superb spicy margaritas! And the amenities available to residents are unreal. There’s a pool, a fitness gym, a yoga studio, a conference area, work stations, a lounge, and a whole corral of bicycles to use whenever the spirit moves. A beautiful courtyard on the 2nd floor of my building screams PARTY TIME!!!

Valet trash pickup comes to my door, and a package delivery service, FETCH, does too. There’s a free shuttle to the beach… I don’t know… does it sound a little too good to be true?

But here I am, and it IS true. All of it. 

The apartment doubles as my daughter’s office. I’ll have the added benefit of seeing her and my granddaughters regularly. That’s what kicks this into the ultra-extraordinary category. If I make this permanent, I’ll get to be here. With them. 

None of it was planned. I didn’t see it coming. But Uranus moved into Gemini on July 7th, where it will remain until November 7th, and as the renowned astrologer, Steven Forrest says, The shock of the unexpected will be everywhere, in the headlines and in your own life.

It’s only August 1st. There are three more months of potential shocking unexpectedness. One could get dizzy with all this turning around!

I Did Not Need ChatGPT To Write This

05 Jul 2025 8 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , ,

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Too Much Truth

Age gives rise to strange thoughts…

I blinked, and youth became yesterday

My children approach fifty

My grandchildren are the singularity

The great parody of life

That we become humorously exaggerated imitations

of our former selves

An excess of saggy skin over stringy muscle

Deeply etched lines that trace smiles and frowns

long gone

Oversized joints that prefer the part of Newton’s

Law that states:

Objects at rest prefer to remain at rest

Inertia hurts less

Vision that tends to look inward more clearly than

outward

Ears that grow large but hear little

Hair once raven, or red, or flaxen

Now gray

Only gray, like the ash of a burned-out fire

But we are not burned out!

We may appear grotesque and vacant behind

rheumy eyes

Our warped forms serve to disguise the sizzle and

spit within

The knowing that comes from decades lived

And the rage that flares when we are

Overlooked, or coddled, or condescended to

We are not invisible, incapable,

Or insignificant

And yes, we are closer to death than 97.2% of the

world’s population

So listen up!

When we die, our wisdom dies with us

The last generation to grow old naturally,

Passes away

And so does this world as we know it.

It Shouldn’t Be This Hard

18 Jun 2025 Leave a comment

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, Portugal, The Farm, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , , ,

It’s a snippet from my latest vision board, before I knew what was developing on the horizon, back when unsettledness simmered just below the surface. It was preparing me, oblivious me, for the challenges ahead.

And here I am, sitting at my daughter’s monster kitchen island where the internet flows unhindered to my ancient HP.

The service here is vastly unlike at home, where I depend upon my Android’s moody hotspot to keep me connected. And when I’ve exhausted the 50 gigabytes of high speed, which I can do in less than a week, I’m suddenly cut off. Just like that. I have no television. No computer. I’m reduced to my phone’s data, using the tiny screen for movies and the minuscule keyboard for writing my books, my blogs, writing anything for that matter. Frustrating is too gentle a word for the inner rage.

There are options…

I can drive 45 minutes to the public library in Grand Rapids and use its wifi connection. I’ve haunted the place lately. The broad expanses of glass overlooking the Mississippi River and the soaring, beamed ceiling offer a stunning venue.

Or I could sit at any coffee shop, brewery, cafe, probably even Dairy Queen in that bustling town, and connect. I don’t want to appear ungrateful. It’s just that I would so much rather skip the inconvenience of the hour-and-a-half round trip and work from home.

When I imagined this week in Minneapolis, caring for Velo, the cat, who was not invited to accompany the family on vacation, I believed their dependable wifi would allow me to zip through the final steps of making my just-published book available for purchase to all my blog readers in no time. I’d design an Author’s Page, add some links, and presto! Done!

Reality can be such a downer.

Somehow, don’t ask me how, in an attempt to toggle a new page, I managed to mangle the website. It took hours to fix the mess. I made it private while I worked to redeem the wreckage so none of my subscribers (you) would witness my ineptitude. In my defense, WordPress is NOT the easiest platform to navigate. Come to find out, I couldn’t even accomplish the private part properly. Suddenly, my stats were climbing. People were accessing the site regardless of my frantic efforts to deter them.

Throughout the process, Velo probably heard words that aren’t allowed in this household, where my seven-year-old grandsons are strongly discouraged from voicing playground expletives. But my pressure valve sputters like a boiling teakettle when agitation mounts, and it’s crudely audible when I’m alone. Velo doesn’t count.

I persisted. At last my Author Page on https://writingforselfdiscovery.com/ went live. The cloud picture I chose to headline the site reflects my emotional landscape of the past several weeks, signifying the other thing that’s been harder than it should be.

The term, ungrounded, doesn’t do justice to my degree of inner chaos. Ever since Portugal, I’ve been out of sync with myself. I’ve gone through the motions of someone rooted to a place, trying to make it true. I created a huge flower bed, transplanted perennials, and bought a weed eater. I dug up oak seedlings and sowed them in my yard along with baby white pines. All the while, a thousand miles away and shimmering like a mirage, my new life was taking shape.

20250513_1845177616054903191700491

I’m moving…again. It will be a radical shift, almost as jarring and liberating as the transition to Bali in 2012. This time it’s Minnesota to South Carolina, Midwest to eastern seaboard, Scandinavian brogue to southern drawl, country to city. It may be temporary – a blip on the landscape lasting a few months. Time will tell.

But what if…

What if I love it? What if it feels right? What if I’m needed? Wanted there? No wonder my head is a cloudy fog. But firm on the ground beneath is the certainty. Whatever this is, it’s what I want. It’s a leap into the unknown, and it’s just that kind of leap that, for me, makes life worth living.

Author’s Page

17 Jun 2025 1 Comment

by writingforselfdiscovery in Uncategorized Tags: , , , ,

I’ve published Nettle Creek!

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About the book:

Her mother died in a car crash when Stella was an infant, at least that’s the story she’s been told. Raised by her wealthy, charismatic father in the financial district of Manhattan, Stella Tarner matures tucked away in the actuarial department of John Tarner’s insurance empire. Socially awkward, she calculates risk for the company and remains invisible in her father’s shadow.

When her John Tarner suffers a fatal heart attack, Stella is catapulted to the position of CEO of Tarner Enterprises, and her life abruptly changes. A letter from the corporate attorneys advises her that Ryebrook Psychiatric Institution has received an inquiry. Hazel Bestcomb of Nettle Creek, Minnesota, is looking for the daughter of Gelda Essling Tarner.

None of it makes sense, unless.…

Is her mother alive? That’s not possible. Her father wouldn’t have lied to her, would he?

Stella hurries to Nettle Creek to investigate. Her interactions with the locals in that small midwestern community affect Stella deeply. Hazel, a transplant from rural Tennessee, becomes Stella’s quirky confidant.

While there, Stella visits Al, her father’s best friend from college. She stays at Judd Swanson’s B&B and meets Judd’s cousin, Tilly, The deeper she delves into the intrigue of her mother’s life, or death, the more tangled the web of lies and deception becomes.

Unaccustomed to the friendly openness of the women of Nettle Creek, and thrown off balance by the men, Stella slowly awakens to unexplored parts of herself, some uncomfortable, some thrilling. Unexpected feelings emerge and jolt her psyche. She flees back to the familiar anonymity of New York to sort herself out.

The twists and turns of this fast-paced mystery romance create a riveting page-turner.

Order the print paperback ($15.99) from Barnes and Noble at the link below: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/nettle-creek-sherry-bronson/1147435725?ean=9798231205721

Order the E-book ($9.99) here: https://books2read.com/u/3LQ091

Please leave a review when you have finished reading.

Resurrection

14 May 2025 4 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, grannys landing, Portugal, The Farm, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , ,

It takes time.

Resurrection came slowly. After six weeks in Isle of Palms on the heels of three weeks in Portugal, Minnesota in mid-March was a desolate homecoming. Crusty brown patches of leftover snow and leafless trees stark against a brooding sky, replaced boundless beaches, ocean breezes, and unrepentant sunshine.

I’d escaped nine weeks of winter. Gentle weather and emerald-green palms had lulled me into believing it was spring everywhere, and indeed it was. But the season looked different as my Uber driver inched me through messy construction and stop-and-go traffic on the Minneapolis, south-494 loop.

My mood plummeted.

It wasn’t just the landscape. I was exhausted, mentally, physically, and emotionally.

The next morning, I loaded luggage smelling of saltwater and dead fish into the back of my Prius and began the three-hour drive north toward home.

Home. Who am I? Home? Where is home?

I arrived, unpacked, and for days did nothing but stare at the monochromatic fields, forests, and sky, spread out in stark reality around me. I couldn’t connect.  Disoriented, mildly depressed, listless, I wondered why I had ever moved to this barren wasteland.

One week passed…two…same old same old.

Around week three, I woke up one morning fully myself. Oh! Where have you been my blue-eyed…daughter? The rising sun dribbled pink-golden light over puffy clouds.

I heard birds. And was that a hint of green – the slightest wash of color in the treetops?

Something took hold of me then, some dormant gene from ancestors long dead. Dirt. I wanted my hands in dirt. A passion to dig and plant and grow stuff overwhelmed me. And where was last-year’s hummingbird feeder? Surely, those tiny beasts would need extra fuel until the flowers bloomed.

Once again, my life had purpose.

I dragged six-by-six beams left over from my construction project to create a planter along the west wall of the house.

My brother-in-law brought three tractor-loads of manure-rich soil and dumped them into that prepared space. Gwen had hostas, and seeds for cosmos, calendula, and cilantro. Sweating and grunting, we dug up the hostas and transferred them to my yard.

Aunt Joyce offered lilies-of-the-valley, irises, and sedum. Yes, please. Thank you!

Then it was Mother’s Day. When I opened my g-mail inbox that morning, there was a sweet note from my youngest daughter and a gift card to Target, where she manages engineers in the IT department.

Yesterday, I spent it. I’ve wanted a weed-whacker forever, and now I own one. Target’s best. (Target’s only!) It required assembly. I can put together Wayfair furniture with my eyes closed. But a machine? We’ll find out my level of mechanical competency when I do its test run today.

I don’t recognize this incarnation of myself, but it feels right. Or, as is always the case with me, it feels right now. There’s no undercurrent of restlessness, no urge to be somewhere else. For the moment, I’m content to beautify and occupy my little corner of the world.

But…

Come November, all bets are off. Winter in Minnesota is not my happy place. I’m thinking Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Costa Rica…or…come to think of it…saya rindu Bali.

What’s Real?

26 Mar 2025 2 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in love, Writing Tags: , , , , ,

What’s real besides The Velveteen Rabbit?

I’ve been in Prythian with Rhysand and Feyre, a place of dark forces and magic. I feel pretty comfortable there. It’s not perfect. There are good queens and winged lords, bad queens and weak mortals, bonded mates and jilted lovers. The intensity grips me, pulls me in. Reality blurs until I’m more in that world than my own.

In that realm, power struggles exist at all levels, evil intrigue, political plotting, betrayals, romance. I’m not a fan of endless torrid love scenes, but when the tension has been building for 500 pages, skillfully interwoven with battles, near deaths, jealousies, and treachery, when you’ve lived in the minds, hearts, and bodies of the characters for that long, sharing their doubts, longings, insecurities, hopes, fantasies, fears and wildest dreams, and when the writer spins a fresh twist on the oldest reproductive act known to humanity…uffdah! Sizzle!

This author, Sarah Maas, has written a series of five books, big, thick, juicy fantasies. For most of my life, I never read that genre. I liked stories set in places I’d heard of, historical fiction, mystery, memoir, action, romance, women’s fiction, literary fiction, anything as long as real people were doing real things. Then came The Hunger Games, dystopian science fiction, and Steig Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a crime fiction thriller, and I was hooked. I couldn’t get enough. Magical realism, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, thriller! Bring it on!

But back to Prythian…have you ever been so engrossed in a movie that when the screen goes dark and you step outside into the light of day it’s almost like, No, please, I don’t want to leave Never Never Land. That’s how reading these books is for me. I’m there, and not merely watching. I become Feyre, the slain mortal resurrected and fated to be the bonded mate of the High Lord Rhysand, with magic to equal his.

So when I hear, “Mom, can you meet the kids’ buses today?” and realize I’m in South Carolina, visiting my dazzling, grown, human daughter, two irresistible granddaughters, and a son-in-law whose looks resemble the High Lord himself, it takes a few moments to orient to my alternative universe. I’m here to help them pack and move into their new home a few blocks away, and I’m totally on task with that!

But, the Prythian Court of Mist and Fury lingers on the periphery. The veil separating the two worlds seems gossamer thin, and when my energy dissipates, I escape into those pages of enchantment where I’m no longer bound by my seventy-five-year-old body. I can winnow from here to anywhere in the blink of an eye and recharge my magic.

And it is…magic. The power to imagine a thing into reality is nothing less than sorcery. Can I manifest Prythian, Feyre, Rhyland, and the Court of Mist and Fury? Hell, yes! When I’m immersed in the story it’s real for me and I exist nowhere else. Isn’t that interesting? So I ask again…What is real?

In case I’ve piqued your interest, these are the titles of the five-book series by author, Sarah J. Maas:

  • A Court of Thorns and Roses
  • A Court of Mist and Fury
  • A Court of Wings and Ruin
  • A Court of Frost and Starlight
  • A Court of Silver Flames

I’ve just started the third book, A Court of Wings and Ruin. I love that it connects immediately with the ending of book two. My daughter said she needed a break after the intensity of the first two. Not me! I’m a glutton for thrills! Not that I need any vicarious risk or drama. There’s plenty of that in my REAL life!

Lucky To Be Alive And Only Slightly Fractured

08 Mar 2025 13 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Portugal, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , ,

It was a long and perilous journey home.

First, there was the 3-hour bus ride from Ferragudo. I’d booked the B & B Airport Hotel for my overnight stay in Lisbon before the morning flight to Philadelphia. I didn’t know what to expect from that choice of lodging but was favorably impressed. It was spotlessly clean, modern, and friendly.

Uber picked me up at 7:30 the next morning and whisked me to Departures. I was at my gate with plenty of time to spare until boarding.

Once on the plane, I found my window seat. There was an empty one between me and the gentleman sitting next to the aisle. The row in front of us had a mother and baby, a little boy in the center, and a chic older woman in front of me by the window.

Note: This will be important later.

We took off on time. In-flight food service began immediately. We were plied with meals three times during the 7 1/2- hour trip over the Atlantic. I watched the movie Conclave because I had just read the book. It followed the plot well.

About an hour before our descent into Philly, the pilot announced that the flight attendants would be collecting all unwanted leftovers and passengers should use the restrooms if needed because in 30 minutes, the seatbelt sign would go on, and we were strongly encouraged to remain in our seats for the remainder of the flight. Some turbulence was expected.

The clouds were serene as we approached our destination.

But as we began to descend through them, the plane went into spasms. It shook and rattled. There was a sickening slide to the left, a jerk upward, a weightless moment as it dropped into a hole in the air, then a slip sideways to the right. Bump, rattle, slip, slide, dodge, dip, repeat. We passengers were like ice cubes in a cocktail shaker damned to an eternity of chaotic mixing. It went on and on and on with no relief.

Just as life-size buildings began to appear indicating we’d almost reached the ground, still shaking furiously, the engines kicked in and roared us skyward, back through the clouds, to impossible calm once again.

The intercom crackled. The pilot spoke. Sorry about the delayed landing, folks. We didn’t like what we saw down there. We’ve been rerouted to a runway better suited to our needs.

After 30 minutes of smooth sailing high above, we started downward again. I wouldn’t have believed it could be worse, but…

We entered the second hell. There was a frantic shuffling search for barf bags followed by the unmistakable stench of people losing their lunch.

All at once, the little boy in the middle of the row in front of me, projectile vomited on his mother and baby brother. Then, swinging his head to the right, he sprayed the backs of the seats in front of him, the TV screens, and finally, the lovely lady by the window.

Keep in mind that we’re still in the cocktail shaker. Flight attendants staggered and stumbled down the aisle with napkins, towels, and garbage bags. Mom, holding baby, tried to mop up the damage. Lady by the window attempted to comfort the distraught little boy while wiping the mess off her clothes. The gentleman in my aisle tucked his nose down his shirt.

Somehow…some way…at some point, the pilots connected with the runway. The plane was like a skier slaloming down a mountain: blown by the wind to one side, overcorrecting and careening to the opposite edge, then skidding back, caught by the wind again. We tore along at hideous speed. Braking to slow down wasn’t an option.

We did finally stop. The shouting and applause sounded like a superbowl touchdown. Worse than drunken sailors, we staggered out of the plane, grateful to be alive.

My email notification was beeping. The connecting flight for that afternoon was canceled. All planes at Philadelphia were grounded.

American Airlines booked me into a hotel and supplied a food voucher, then printed boarding passes that would get me to Minneapolis with a Chicago layover the next morning.

Waiting in the freezing, blustery wind for the hotel shuttle, I had an insightful conversation with a fellow survivor from my flight. He was on leave from his job in Pakistan, going home to see his family. After an hour and two phone calls to the hotel, the shuttle arrived.

The driver barreled down the freeway. The bus, rocked by gale-force winds, went into a skid then recovered. I turned to my new friend. Wouldn’t it be ironic, I began…

…if we survived the plane, but we’re killed in the shuttle bus? he finished. It felt good to laugh.

Now I’m safely home. It’s surreal, like only part of me has arrived, and some significant foundational piece is missing. I’m trying to remember my life here. What do I do? Do I have a purpose? I attempted to craft a grocery list. It was beyond me. 

I’m going to have to let myself be. Do nothing until the scattered pieces have reassembled, and I’m once again firmly earthbound.

I’m embracing this thought from a recent issue of the Magnolia magazine…

What if the response…is to just sit in it, to let ourselves settle into the discomfort of being still, and see what rises to the surface of our (finally) unoccupied minds. And what if…it is really just a chance to slow down, a chance to take a deep breath, and a chance to bring about much-needed clarity in a world that moves so very fast.

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