Me o my am me 32… 4.1.24 You can’t not go home again. Post-script.

Me o my am me 32… 4.1.24 You can’t not go home again. Post-script. 

I woke up early as usual. Today was a little different of course. My last day. Also I had no food left except my gruel. I also wouldn’t be able to carry it around iced, as they wouldn’t let me bring in ice through the gates I guessed. I got right to packing and eating some oatmeal made with water with a brown banana mixed in. Survival food. 

I contemplated taking the LYFT to Government Center and then taking the metro to the airport, but checking the price it was less than the $50 I had paid coming in and also the Metro looked confusing. Packing took longer than I thought. I hate packing. Always stressful and sometimes sad. This time a little sad. No more street music and adventures everyday. 

After checking and rechecking the apartment I was ready to go. I LYFTed it. The driver came after a 15 minutes. I tried to talk to him but nothing. Then I said something in Spanish and that was it. He talked non-stop in Spanish and with an accent I didn’t understand. So many people didn’t speak English here. It was more of a Spanish city than an English City. A real mix here; Cubans, Haitians, South Amercians, blacks, and oh yes white Americans. Gumbo. 

I got to the airport and looked into an earlier flights. It seemed impossible. Ok. I had 10 hours to kill. I wasn’t ready to go inside yet. I wanted to finish my water and eat a meal. I sat in a little section across from the ticketing lines. There were a lot of people waiting there. I started talking to a young woman who was also waiting. There were other people jockeying for seats. Finally she said, why don’t you sit next to me. It was simpler. We were both in the same situation and with a lot of time to kill. It was like the situation in a bar where you feel free to talk to some stranger and tell them things you wouldn’t even tell your close friends. She was from Singapore and came to the USA for a visit. First she went to Houston and had a one night stand from someone she met in a Salsa Club and now she was pining over him. She wasn’t beautiful but nice looking, a talented graphic artist living in Australia. I knew something was up when after talking to her for 10 minutes she asked, “Are you married?” “No. Do you want to marry me?”  She had to wait for her flight for 4 hours so we hung out until then. It helped me pass the time and it was fun flirting with her. We got along fine until we started talking politics. Oh no! Another person who drank the Koolaide. By the end I was holding her hand which is about as far as I had gotten with any woman in more than a year. I saw her off and I still had 6 hours to go. 

I found a food court that had a counter that faced outward and I could watch all the people walking by. I felt like a fish looking out a fishbowl. There sure were a lot of interesting people around. Maybe I will be a fish in my next life. I worked on catching up on my stories. By that time it was almost 7 pm and I thought I might be able to see some of the Women’s NCAA game with Iowa. Yes I also bgot caught up in the Caitlan CLark Saga. I walked around and found a place that had a tv, bought a diet coke for $5 and watched about 10 minutes until half-time. I went back to my gate and was surprised to see that the gate wasn’t my gate anymore. What the….? I panicked. Then I went to the big board and saw that the gate had been changed and also that the flight was delayed. 

I waited a while and then went back to the bar but just watched from the outside. I wasn’t going to go back and pay another $5. I watched another 10 minutes and then went back to the gate. It wasn’t there again. They had changed the gate again, each time going further and further out; now gate 42. As luck would have it, there was a bar with a tv right there. I waited and watched as long as I could. People were starting to get on the plane now. There were 5 minutes left.  I couldn’t watch the end of the game but I followed it on my phone. 

As always there was tension getting on the plane and whether I would be able to store my stuff, my overstuffed backpack and my sax. I got on early for group 7 (the cheap losers) and was able to get situated if I put my feet in a certain way. I was flying a 737 Max; not a wonderful feeling. I guess American Airlines was using them a lot. Hopefully, the pilot was trained on them. The new Max’s didn’t have little screens at every seat, instead they wanted you to use your phone to use their in house wifi, which of course only worked half the time. I got a good view of Miami at night as we swung north. Oh there is the Opera House. Oh there is the stadium. Goodbye Miami. Goodbye. I had been looking forward to watching a movie on the 2 ½ hour flight but it didn’t matter as I fell asleep after the first movie died. It was a very bumpy flight. The pilot said it couldn’t be avoid it and basically told us to tough it out. 

We landed at about 1 am and it was 1:30 by the time I got my bag. It was still pouring. I looked at Lyft and the price was very high; $170. Too much. Also I didn’t want to drive with an unknown driver in the middle of the night. I decided just to sleep in the airport until 5 or 5:30 am. I spread out my trusty hoodie and was able to sleep a bit. At 5:30 I woke up for the umpteeth time. The price was down to $88. I made a reservation, went to the bathroom and then got a coffee. I guess I hurried a bit because later when I got home my hoodie was gone. I had carried it around all day and lost it at the end. Damn. I hate to lose stuff. 

The LYFT driver arrived; an older black man. On the way home I talked to my sister for about 20 minutes and then started talking to the driver. The more he talked the more interested I got. He was born in Liberia; the African country that ex-slaves started moving in the 1800’s. I knew nothing about Liberia. He started telling me all about it; the great wealth gaps; the tension between the returning ex-slaves and the locals who they called “country People”. This guy had been an electronics teacher in a university in the US and Liberia. It was an amazing story. His name was Lionel Gibson and I wish we could be friends. The trip flew by and soon I was back home, at least for now. Ping pong; yo-yo. That is my life for now. The trip was finally over.