Take a breath

Last weekend, my family and our close family friends went to New York City. We were all excited for our 7AM flight, but as our pilot Dan said, "Mother Nature isn't cooperating right now." Our 7AM flight was delayed so we spent time at the airport Chili's and talked about what we would be

After the first delay, we reboarded the plane only to be told that we would be delayed a little longer. We left the plane again, headed back to the airport Chili’s, and readjusted our plans to visit the 9/11 Memorial and created new plans.  We just had to go with the flow.

When we re-boarded the plane the second time, my daughter, Lauren, with a little prodding from my wife, Jenifer, asked to see the cockpit.  Low and behold, not only did Lauren get to see the cockpit, she got to sit in the pilot’s see while speaking with the co-pilot. Always intrigued by flying (Frankly, I don’t really understand how an airplane can get air born and stay air born.), I asked to have a seat in the cockpit and converse with Lauren and the co-pilot.  Jenifer captured the moment in these pictures.

There are times when we need to step back, recognize how lucky we are, and just go with the flow. This was one of those times for me. Mother Nature was in charge, as she often is, and we just had to deal with it.

When I think about education these days, and life in general, I often think about how often we expect something to happen right now.  I know that I get irritated when the wifi doesn’t seem as fast as it should be, or the person in front of me is driving slower than I would like, or the line to get food at McDonald’s isn’t moving fast enough, or I don’t get a response to an email or text right away. Sometimes I just have to wait, because it’s really not that important to have fast wifi, or to get somewhere faster, or to get fast food a little later, or to give someone the benefit of the doubt when responding.

It’s alright to take a deep breath, have a conversation with your daughter and the co-pilot, and just savor the moment.  New York City will come fast enough. Enjoy the time with family, and friends, and strangers who are doing their best. Once the moments are gone, they’re gone, never to be repeated.

P.S.- As luck would have it, our return flight was canceled on Tuesday night. Fortunately we found out in the early afternoon. What did we do? We ate lunch at a cafe owned by our friend's relative, canceled the car we had scheduled to take us to the airport, booked a new flight, found a new hotel, traveled back to our first hotel and took an Uber to the new hotel, visited Times Square, and spent time with our friends at the hotel Sky Bar. And the view was amazing! As the saying goes, we just made lemonade out of lemons.