travelling to NC

Yesterday I made my way to North Carolina.  You know T.S. Eliot's "Prufrock" line "I have measured out my life in coffee spoons"? I have measured out my life in airport terminals. Airport terminals and train stations.  Though considering that past three times of traveling home have been nothing short of traumatic, this one was easy.  Last time I went home I missed my connecting flight.  The time before that the UK Border Agency held my passport, so I had to apply for an emergency one.  The Christmas before that all of Britain shut down due to snow storms and I didn't make it home until the 24th of December.  This time things could have gone badly.  I woke up at 3 am to leave by 4 to catch my train at 5, to get to London by 8, to get to Heathrow by 10, to board my flight at 12. But against all my expectations, things glided along, perfetly, simply and smoothly, fitting together like a well made clock.  Up until I lost my passport.

I had just cleared US customs and had made it through domestic security.  They failed to properly feed us on the flight so I must have been delirious, but it was while sitting down and eating my first Chick-fil-a that I noticed that I couldn't find my boarding pass or passport.  It had to be either between security and the food court in a narrow twenty-minute margin of having it and it disappearing. As I am a hyper-vigilante regarding el passporte, I racked my brains and couldn't understand how I could have misplaced such a thing. I flew to my gate. Nothing. I flew to US Airways services. Nothing. They had wifi-- and after frantically messaging my family, I flew back to security, and foolish me, it had fallen out in my panic to reassemble myself in a timely manner. I blessed the kind man, dashed to my gate, and was ferried home amid turbulent skies.  I have since played with my dog and wrapped presents. It is good to be home.