When I was eleven or maybe twelve, our family and another met up for a camping vacation in Ontario, Canada. I grew up camping. It was pretty much the only way we went on vacation. It was our ‘thing.’ On this particular trip, we tented on a small peninsula and went out fishing just about every day. Sometimes just the dads went out fishing and the moms and the four kids stayed back and found various landlubbing adventures to keep us busy. The fishing was good. The camping was fine. The landscape was beautiful. And then there were the mosquitos.
In plague-like fashion, a cloud formed at the other end of the lake towards the end of each day and you could see it coming. There were so many of them that we could hear a deep, low buzz well before they swarmed our campsite. It sounds more like an epic Cecille B. DeMille production than reality, but it happened. The bugs were insane. Once we heard that guttural buzz we knew we had just moments to get into the tents. Even inside, you could see them through the thin fabric. They laughed at Deep Woods Off. They would have eaten a citronella candle and belched “S-O T-H-E-R-E” when they were done. We arranged our schedule and our chores so that we would be done before the mosquitos descended upon us.
A few years later we were camping again, this time at Cumberland Gap National Park in Tennessee for nearly ten days. We fished, we canoed, we hiked, we went rock-hunting. It sounds like a lot but we did most of that in about two and a half days. The rest of the time we faced some rain.
By “some” rain, I mean that Niagara Falls relocated to above our soaked heads for the better part of a week. The word monsoon leaves something to be desired. Namely, towels. Day and night, it rained. We refused to go anywhere in pairs lest we wind up on a big wooden boat built by an old guy with a penchant for wine. It rained so hard some nights that I would have sworn to you our tent was facing a different direction when we woke up. Or that we were in a different state. Except it was staked into the ground. Our plans changed. Day trips were canceled. Instead of campfires and smores, we were stuck in the damp confines of a nylon tent with water dripping through the fabric in a dozen places.
A couple weeks ago, I was LYFT driving and I pulled into the back entrance of Westchester County Airport to pick up a pair of pilots. It was a cool night and the windows were down. The Yankee game was on the radio. It didn’t take much for the captain to engage in conversation.
“It’s a beautiful night.”
“Yes, sir, it is.” And from there we talked about baseball, a pandemic, politics, and southern California. I’m no expert but I did live there once. There might have even been a Holiday Inn Express involved.
“You know the trick.” He said, with an English accent that had been in America a long time.
“Excuse me? I’m not sure I understand.”
“We got into your car and the windows were down. You were listening to a baseball game. The sun’s gone down and for a few minutes I completely forgot I was wearing a mask and the world is the way it is. You know the trick.”
“What trick is that?”
“You changed our circumstances.” He looked out the window for a moment.
“We have to do that, too, when we fly. If there’s turbulence, we have to try and fly above it. If there’s a storm, we go around it. If we get a bad crosswind, we fly lower. We have to change the circumstances for the passengers. Yet they always give us just enough fuel to go from here to there. It can be quite tricky.”
“Yeah. I suppose it could.” I hadn’t given it that much thought. It was a nice night, so the windows went down. A baseball game is often a perfect soundtrack for different kinds of riders with different preferences. The fabulous sunset was well beyond my control.
The co-pilot spoke up, “It’s even harder when they don’t know you’re doing it. That’s the real trick.”
The captain spoke again, and I doubt that I’ll ever forget what he said. “I get paid to be a pilot, to fly a plane. But that’s not my job. My job is to get the passengers from Van Nuys to Westchester. They are my job.”
And sometimes the job means changing the circumstances. Keeping the whole big picture in mind. Remembering that who is part of why and what and how have to come after that. Maybe you can’t stay on the same flight path for this reason or that. Cut left or right, fly higher or lower. Dodge a storm or just roll down a window. Change the circumstances rather than let them define a situation.
In Ontario, the four kids formed a band of outdoor pseudo-superheroes. We armed ourselves to the teeth with cans of insect repellent and handmade swatting implements. We blatantly ripped off a classic movie to come up with our own name and theme song. “Who ya’ gonna call?” … Bug Busters! We even had verses.
In that soggy tent we played UNO by the light of a kerosene lantern and once it was dark, we recited “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” by Robert Service.
“There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.” More than once, the thunder strikes seemed perfectly and hauntingly timed.
We don’t have to fly a plane to find ways to change the circumstances. We roll down windows to feel the breeze. We listen to something familiar. We take in a sunset that words can’t describe. We sit in a fat and friendly silence. We laugh. We laugh at rain. We laugh at mosquitos.
We never once acted like those skeeters weren’t there. We couldn’t deny days of rain. When the pilots climbed in, nobody pretended there wasn’t a pandemic. You can’t force normal when there isn’t going to be one. You can’t just quit. But you can change the circumstances. It may not be easy. You may have to leave some things behind. The agenda may go out the window and that’s ok. It has to be. Because it’s not about normal. It’s not about the plan or the plane or the bugs or the rain. It’s about the people. Whoever they are. The who IS the why. And the what and the how will always come next.
Change the plan. Change direction. Look at it differently. Do something new. Invite other voices. Make a new path even if it means a few mosquito bites or another downpour. Find a way to change the circumstances.
That is the trick, isn’t it?
2 Comments
Wonderful memories, great insight, perfect application. And fun to read! Thanks, Chris – you’ve done it again.
This blessed me. Thank you Chris.