it was not my doing this time. or it was undoing, thinking a long layover could be taken advantage of, but they outdid their own delay once, then twice, and then they did not even bother to tell anymore that they were going to be even later still, and i somehow was passive throughout this process, thinking that the wet smudges in the air outside were big enough to cover all of us anyway… hoping that the connection would be delayed too so that i wouldn’t have to do any running. i’m so tired.

. i am catching this flight with the idea of being still. . three hours later i dozed on and off to the voice of the man in 6B, who stopped the flight attendant every time she passed by to ask how much longer it would be. i check my watch often, too. i can still make it, but i may have to run. i thought he was worried, but he was comforting a younger female voice behind me: “This is natural, you know, ’cause of the weather, but they know what they’re doing; it’ll be any minute now.” . In my sleep, we tumble like rocks. . When i open my eyes and look out of the window we have entered a painting. Everything is all grey. How can we be moving if forward and backward and past and present are all grey? . She is collecting the drinks now. . I doze again. When I open my eyes, the grey has become layered, but i can only see that we are sandwiched between other atmospheric crusts of slightly varying shades of grey. so not being able to move forward or backward or past or present has a depth, too. . But if we can’t see the ground below us, how will we land? . when we do, the passengers applaud. . “See? I told you we’d be all right. But you know, I was scared, too.” . The small voice of the girl behind me replies, “Thank you.”…

it is windy and loud to emerge on an air field in grey weather. the man greeting us at the bottom of mobile staircase wears a straight face with his fluorescent vest. when i ask him about possible delays for other flights, in particular the once-a-day flight to beijing on Air China, he responds equally matter-of-factly, with a point of his finger. i turn to see the huge whale of 747 looming just behind me, about 100 meters away. it’s windy and it’s grey and this plane has an overly festive looking curly red painted tail, but it is moving and i am standing still. my flight enters the taxi without me. . sigh… so close. . inside gate 24 it looks like christmas or thanksgiving. People are draped over chairs everywhere like meats and jellies, and all of the lights blink CANCELLED or DELAYED. . i was taking this flight with the idea of being still. yesterday i wrote to r about the acquiring of things as a way of being still. accumulation, and all the things packed neatly in two suitcases. now i stand in a line to inquire about them, and to ask someone to prove to me in writing that i missed my flight not because of my own doing but because of poor weather. the people at air china may not have noticed. “We made our flight, why couldn’t you make yours?” I imagine them saying to me indignantly. I would say to them, I was stuck in Boston being still. . it’s stressful like christmas or thanksgiving, and i begin to tear up in the queue for the ticketing desk. people understand. the young woman in front of me is sympathetic. we can laugh about it again before we get to the first turn in the wait line. we inch forward one step at a time. . i see the asian woman i met standing next to the over life-sized bust of freud yesterday with r. i think it was her. she had boarded the flight i wanted to take, the one that had boarded twenty minutes before mine, but now she has left the gangway ten minutes after me, looking slightly bewildered. she walks off to the right. after i ask r about her over the phone, i see her walking out of starbucks. we make eye contact, and i look for an acknowledgment of recognition, but she looks away. i keep waiting. . the woman in front of me and i stare together in amazement at a man who flails his arms angrily at the attendant assisting him behind the counter. she holds up something she’s scrawled on a notepad. his body reads all of his frustration, but unfortunately she is behind the counter and cannot see him communicating. oh wait, now she has let him behind the counter, and he has taken her seat in front of the computer while two of them look on from behind. . he appears to be choosing his own flight by now. . when he has returned to the passenger side of the counter i have reached the third row in the queue. there are four attendants helping him now. his arms are not flailing anymore. by the time he finally leaves the counter he looks quite satisfied. we inch one step forward. . the woman in front of me makes it to the counter and i overhear the attendant telling her that there are no more flights to Albany until tomorrow. but she doesn’t look overly disappointed, even when they tell her, “We don’t give hotel vouchers on account of delays due to weather.” I guess not, but somehow the bureaucracy and the rows of tired and upset meats and jellies seem a bit more than can be attributed to natural causes. whatever. we have already laughed about it. . the woman in front of me has finished and walked away already, so i step up and explain to the grim looking attendant, who checks the system and tells me that air china knew already, “they have you booked on tomorrow’s flight, same time.” and my bags? “we’ve sent them over there already, they should be there when you check in tomorrow.” Such foresight, those air china people. They knew that i have a history of missing flights? . but i fear now too much passivity, so i decide to go to the air china terminal to check for myself. “Air train to terminal 7,” the grim attendant tells me, and i head out of all of the holiday cheer of terminal 2. . A loop around the airport reveals that Air China is at terminal 1. It’s much more glamorous than terminal 2, like a stunted version of Foster’s Hong Kong airport, with long, sweeping white beams directing passengers along the hall. The destinations are more glamorous, too, with Albany and Akron being replaced by Paris and Tokyo. But there is no sign of Beijing, or Air China, for that matter. The sign directing passengers to the Air China desk leads me to a row of olive-skinned women wearing green uniforms. hmmm…very un-chinese. . I look around again, finally coming to pause in front of the JAL desk. Asian faces, grey uniforms with red scarves and neckties. hmmm…a little bit closer. . then, at a small unmarked desk to the right, the distinct sounds of mandarin. the voice belongs to an obachan wearing a deep red silk Chinese jacket embroidered with small black cherry blossoms. Great, this must be it. But why is there no sign? And when did Air China employees begin to wear lavender suits instead of red? . The lavender suited woman looks very stressed. She speaks sharply to obachan, who doesn’t seem to mind and says “I don’t care if you are getting off from work; I will hold you here if i have to. There is nobody else here. I have to speak with you.” She tells obachan that she can’t get ahold of them, that nobody is answering the phone. i wonder if she is trying to help obachan call her family. . Obachan and I wait for lavender suited woman while she calls up a group who has missed their flight to Montreal. She is very kind to them, offering them hotel vouchers with free dinner and breakfast. She tries to ignore us, but obachan holds her ground, following the attendant’s every move as if to say, “I’ve got you, see. You’re not leaving until you help me.” I hang on to her, too, thinking yes, me too, me too—-not really questioning why she walks back and forth to speak with the grey suited attendants at the desk to the left. . it takes me awhile to realise that the lavender suited chinese woman does not work for Air China; She is with JAL. . nobody answers the phone at Air China. . Obachan has missed the flight to Beijing, too. She is supposed to have surgery done there. Now what will she do? “I’ve been circling around the airport too many times today already. I will just sit and wait then. I don’t want to get lost again.” Lavender-suited woman tells us, “but this terminal closes at midnight. You can’t stay here overnight.” . So obachan and i are tossed together. I take her to the airport hotel, where we order bad Chinese take-out and and she tells me about coming to America eleven years ago. She is 68 now, with her daughter, son-in-law and four grandchildren living near Washington, D.C. She works in a factory four days a week from 3 p.m. to 2 a.m. to connect parts and wiring for some kind of machinery. She’s not afraid to return home alone at that hour. She is not afraid to fly alone. . “Things will happen as they are meant to, so why worry?” . She believes that we are taken care of by God above. She believes she’s a simple person, but she’s learned amazing things about America, about all men being created equal, and there is a lot that she thinks China still has to learn from America. We have a lot to learn from each other. . After eating, we both stop talking for a moment, look at one another and smile. . We are still for the night, having missed our plane.