NO ONE DOES IT ALONE: 
Musings while stranded at Dulles Airport

Sometimes it takes awhile for all my brain cells to fire up in the morning. That was certainly true on Thursday as the alarm went off at 5:00 a.m., interrupting my dreams to dash out the door for an early flight.
 
In a demonstration of love, my partner, Ramone, had graciously offered to drive me to the bus—generous because I know how much he loves and needs his sleep. But he didn’t need to get up quite as early as I did, so I quietly silenced the alarm on my phone, and slipped out of bed in the still dark night.
 
Of course such mornings are rushed, and when I got on the bus, I soon discovered I had left my cell phone on the nightstand, while heading out on a 9-day trip. Aargh! How is it I feel so naked without something that I never even had for the first 50 years of my life?
 
A quick email sent from San Francisco airport caught my assistant, Gianna, up early enough to pick up my phone before going to her second job, and blessedly, I’m told it’s already in the mail, overnight delivery. Thank you Gianna, for rescuing my lapse in consciousness, and thanks to all those who work round the clock to make overnight delivery possible. What a miracle!
 
Several hours later, I am sitting in Dulles airport with a 8-hour flight delay, unable to call my destination and warn them. A lovely lady at the United Club desk urges me to come in. She lets me use her phone. She books an extra flight the next day in case I don’t get out tonight. She offers to book a hotel, and tells me where the best food is. I munch on the constant supply of little carrots in the bowl next to me.
 
When I finally arrive at my hotel, 2:20 a.m., someone is there to check me in, working the night shift, just for people like me, stranded in the world of travel. 
 
All around me in this escapade, I choose to see this miraculous network as demonstrations of love. Everywhere, someone is doing something that makes our world work, most of it thankless and unseen. None of us really do anything alone, and we would do well to remember that on those days when we might feel that way.
 
We have created a world of massive, interconnected support for nearly every function of society. And much as we may deplore all that’s wrong, we have to marvel that such complexity works as well as it does. Whatever your need, whether it is to have your garbage picked up and recycled, your grocery store stocked with food, your body transported from one place to another, your safety protected, your questions answered, your roads paved, there is someone who is doing that, often at miserable hours and below minimum wage. These are the invisible hands that are working together everywhere, held in a network of support for everything we do. We need to make our actions worthy of such support.
 
Just as we are enveloped within an invisible field of air, supplying our every breath with new oxygen, we are enveloped in a field of universal love. This field is held together by a web of perpetual reciprocity, an elaborate network of give and take. Generosity feeds this web, and appreciation sustains it.
 
Sometimes we have to slip and fall to discover the invisible net that is there all the time.
 
Maybe that’s what Valentine’s Day is really about. 
 
Anodea Judith
Albany, NY
02.14.15