Should Have Known

It’s been a long snowy winter in Sault Ste Marie (nicknamed “the Soo”), which borders Canada and the U.S. This season we received twelve feet of snowfall. As I write, the clocks have sprung forward, the calendar says Spring and Easter is around the corner. Yet three feet of snow remain on the ground.

Snow, which touches all aspects of life in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, affected me one early February morning when I was on a flight out of the Soo. What should have been an hour flight to Minneapolis took nine hours. Our plane made multiple attempts to land only to be diverted three times. The first time we were diverted to Des Moines in a blizzard and after we sat on the tarmac, re-fueled and de-iced, we were back in the air only to be vectored to Omaha. Unable to deplane, we were stranded for another few hours. Cramped in the last row next to the lavatory, bored after reading the only book I had, and having eaten and shared with a diabetic woman all my emergency snacks, it was time for a little T’ai Chi Chih. I thought the Chi would help get us safely back in the air to Minneapolis and in good cheer. So, there I was standing in an aisle practicing TCC on a plane in Omaha, encouraging the Chi to do its thing.

The captain eventually fueled up again, de-iced again and started onward to Minneapolis again. On the fourth attempt, after landing soundly, the pilots and flight attendant announced that they had never anticipated such a patient, calm and understanding group of passengers. TCC helped the whole energy of the flight and it certainly helped me realize that all would be well. By the way, the flight attendant’s name was Carmen. I should have known all along that the journey would end well.