writing from the plane on a runway in PHX

Santa Fe was lovely, really lovely. It was a georgous morning when I left the SAR compund some seven hours ago. I will get back to SAR and Lexi and my letting-go-of-the-past ritual performed before I left, but first, a bit about my current circumstance. I won’t be able to post this until later, but since I have time to kill, I may as well keep busy.

To begin with, my itinerary said I was on a direct flight from ABQ to LAX. So when I woke up in PHX, it was a little bit surprising. The people next to me were going to PDX, so offered little insight. Not a big deal, as a flight attendant told me, “sometimes that just happens, I’m not sure why.” She was on the crew that got swapped out the first time we returned to a gate after sitting on the runway, but I bet if I were to ask her about our current circumstance she would offer something similar.

Just to get you caught up, I am on my third crew – second for this leg of the flight – and we have been returned to a gate from the runway for a second time. This time it is mechanical. For the last couple of hours we have fallen into the an-update-every-ten-to-twenty-minutes-with-no- sign-of-movement-in-sight. I am doing better than a lot of my companions. The guy next to me is having a little meltdown and is armed with the numbers to call so we can alert the media and put pressure on the airline to let us off the plane. As long as the a/c holds out, I am refraining from signing the petition to unlock the door. There is a crowd growing at the door, and I feel bad for people who are missing connection. In particular a non-English speaking Chinese couple, who from what I gather have an overseas connection leaving LAX at 5:30. It is after four now.

I am surprisingly calm. I think it is because if I were to respond to all the ugly around, it would be anything but pretty. Instead I am with the woman offering a Cliff bar and slice from a loaf of bread that she evidently had along for just such an instance. It has occurred to me to wrap this up, but I contiue to type in avoidance of the storm brewing next to me (i.e., really pissed off guy). I’ll let you know what happens once the media have been alerted.