Time melts away while he tries to make the holes
Turn it on, Salvador…”
–Toy Matinee, Turn It On Salvador
And now it was locked with the key inside on the table, exactly where the owners had told us to leave the key. To shut the door behind us. To have safe travels home.
It was six in the morning, and we were supposed to have left for the airport by that point. The plan was to move the big bags one at a time down the tiny elevator from the fourth floor to the first, call the Uber and head to the airport, to start the long trek home from Paris.
“Dad, Mom said you brought the suitcase down, where is it?” our oldest Beatrice asked.
That’s when I got the phone call from my wife, Amy.
“You don’t have it? Sweetie, I already shut the door. It’s locked,” she said.
I took the tiny elevator back up to where she was, unable to articulate how horrified I was. I pounded my fists on my legs.
“I’m sorry, I thought you had the bag,” Amy said. “I’ll call and text the owners right now.”
“I told you I could only bring one bag at a time.”
“I’m calling them now.”
Later, I would relate that extreme sick feeling I felt at that very moment to when George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life chastised Uncle Billy for losing the $8,000 that was supposed to be deposited in the bank.
Where's that money, you silly stupid old fool? Where's that money? Do you realize what this means? It means bankruptcy and scandal and prison! That's what it means! One of us is going to jail; well, it's not gonna be me!
Except that we wouldn’t be going to prison. And it wasn’t a scandal. It was stressful, though, and in stress I tend to run on reactive overdramatic steam, and was already running through all possible (worst) scenarios of what would happen and what we’d have to do. The reality was, at worst, the owners would respond and show up too late, and we’d have to rebook our flights home. At best, the owners would respond quickly, come let us in so we could get our suitcase and get to the airport in time for our flight.
And so, we waited to hear back. Amy and the girls were in the lobby with all but the one missing suitcase, and me on the fourth floor waiting and staring at my phone. I could hear Amy talking softly with the girls all the way down on the first floor. It was early and no one else in the building was up yet. Time hung like weights on my face, arms and legs. It pulled me downward like the superheated gravity of a Salvador Dali painting. The horrified anger and frustration I had at that moment reminded me of the day before, when we were on our way to an Eiffel Tower tour, and hit a snag with our Metro subway tickets. We were losing time, something I despise, especially when there’s something scheduled we’re running up against. Traveling as a family works pretty well for us overall – the girls are great travelers and roll with it all, and Amy and I complement each other along the way.
But I really struggle with time, and Amy does not. Time shorts me, bullies me, shames me. Time protects her, loves her, forgives her. I wrestle with time; she dances with it. For our girls? Time is an open green field under blue skies where they can run and play.
A moment of indecision, defunct Metro tickets, an Uber that would’ve taken too long, and I decided we had to go to another Metro station and try again. I just didn’t want to miss the last scheduled tour on our trip, one that wasn’t cheap.
After going back and forth about it for less than a minute, I blurted out something like, “Fine, you can stay here but I’m going!”
Not a great moment for me, and although I handle stress much better in my life these days, I’m still sometimes sucked into the black holes of selfish anger.
“Don’t fight, Mom and Dad,” both girls said.
The fourth floor was eerily quiet as I thought about the day before, waiting to hear the owner had arrived to let us in.
We made it with plenty of time yesterday, I thought. And we took the girls on the Eiffel Tower, for goodness sake. First world problems and all that. So grateful we were able to go on this trip together. First DC, now this. Such an amazing trip and so educational and enlightening for us all.
Then I remembered that, right before we made it to the tour with time to spare, I had said, “We just have to better build in that nickel and dime time when we travel. I travel a lot more than you now.”
Which, in retrospect, was just a stupid thing to say, because Amy was traveling a lot more than me when we first met, and now that I travel more for work, it’s easier just to plan for me, and yet she’s the one who has to prep travel for two kids and a dad when we all travel together. I help of course, but she’s always been better at the prep and planning than me. So, it was no surprise when she gently but firmly reminded me of that.
Back to the waiting on the fourth floor – only five minutes had gone by. I texted Amy.
Any response?
No, I am so sorry.
Love you. Nothing we can do about it.
And that was it, really. Nothing we could do about it. I sat down in that moment metaphorically as if it were a hammock chair, fully present in whatever was to happen next, and I repeated the brief meditation I practice more often these days.
Breathe in – I am – breathe out – at peace. Over and over. Amen.
Then I thought of the picture I took of Beatrice staring at a line of graffiti along the walls of the Seine River. It read:
Live like it’s your last day ever.
I received another text from Amy: He is coming now.
Live.
At the airport, before we boarded, Amy said, “You see, everything works out just like it’s supposed to.”
“I know, and you always remind me of that,” I said.
“Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
And then time melts away.
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