September 10th

One year ago today, my life changed.

At this time I was at the airport in Homer, waiting to board the flight to take me to Anchorage. I knew I didn't have much time between flights. Would I make it to my connecting flight to Dillingham?

The first thing I noticed about the pilots from ERA Aviation was how young they looked. Was that really peach fuzz on their faces? Wait. One of them had a wedding band on. Didn't that mean he was probably older than he looked? Please tell me that a couple of 16 year old really weren't flying the plane. Oh please tell me that.

By the time we were half way across Turn Again Arm the whole area was socked in with clouds. No, it didn't make me feel better. I had two very young pilots, and I knew somewhere in those clouds were mountains.

When we reached Anchorage I scrambled to get to the Alaska Air counter, get my ticket, get through security and reach the gate before the plane left. After I had my ticket in hand, the first thing they did at security was take my lighter from me. WTF? The guy there looked at me like I was trying to pull a fast one on them. "It's been that way since April," he said not so nicely. I looked at him and laughed. Then I said, "Great. I haven't been on a plane since June of 1997." He looked at me. "Really?" "Yes, really. I knew there would be some changes, but I didn't know what they were." "You haven't flown since 1997?"

As much as I would have liked to have stayed at chat with him about such an un-Alaskan thing, not flying for that many years, I had a plane to catch.

Or so I thought. Turns out they eventually cancelled that flight. Instead of leaving at 9 something or another in the morning, we wouldn't leave until after 5 p.m.

Great. I had all those hours in the airport, with plenty of cigarettes and nothing to light them with. And smoking meant leaving the security area and having to go through it again and again and again. By the time my flight did leave, the people in security knew who I was and we were on first name greetings.

Last night Lori called. We talked long enough to kill the battery on her cell phone and we finally ended our conversation when we were close to killing the battery on her land line phone. Last night I didn't realize it was September 9th. Or that in the morning, it would be the one year anniversary of when my life changed.

But we did talk about the last year. For both of us. Which is another reason why I love talking to Lori. We can talk in sentence fragments and we get what the other is saying. Every time.

I don't know where I'll be next September 10th. There are things going on in my life that I don't understand. Lori understands some of it in a way that I still don't. She says in time I'll fully understand. Maybe. Maybe not.

All I know is she assures me things will be fine. More than fine.

Reminds me of something that happened about twenty years ago. Mom told me that out of all her kids she never had to worry about me. "No matter what happens, you manage to take the worst situations and turn them into something good. I used to think this one would knock you down to where you couldn't get back up, but you always come back, stronger and better."

I asked her why? Why couldn't I just leave things as they were. She laughed. "Because you've always had to find the answers to the questions the rest of us are too afraid to even ask."

The truth of it was revealed a few days ago at work. A woman who has only known me for a couple months said to me, "Fire engine red."

I told Lori about it last night. She knew what that lady meant. Mom would have known what that lady meant.

September 10th, 2005, I started stripping all the dull grays from my life to make room for my old familiar life colors. Fire engine red.

Will I get knocked on my ass? Yep. That's part of living life as a fire engine red. Will I pick myself up again? You betcha.

Will I understand the things going on in my life that I don't understand right now? Yeah, Lori, you're right. There will come a time when I stop fighting what you already know and what deep down I know, too.

Hey, we both tried to play it safe. Look what it did to us. We're both fire engine red. It's what makes us happiest. Well, that and pissing off the feminist.