Recharge at Kennedy

I sit in the recharge kiosk at Kennedy Airport, which is a four-sided booth with a shelf, an electric outlet, and a circular bench. I check the long corridor to my right, half expecting at any moment for Starr King students to arrive from California. There are at least four students who left San Francisco airport this morning at 6:30 a.m. and they will have an hour or so layover here. Then we will board Delta flight 72 and tbegin the nearly 10-hour flight east to Istanbul. We will lose or gain, depending on your perspective, seven hours and arrive at 9:55 a.m. tomorrow.

The Rev. Linda Anderson, minister of the Kingston UU church, and I met in Newburgh and drove down together. While we didn’t have to be at the gate but an hour before the flight, our luggage needed to be here three and a quarter hours before.

The baggage attendant didn’t shed any light why luggage on flights to Istanbul require so much extra time than flying to any other overseas city, but we can only surmise it’s because it will be searched thoroughly.

The Upper Delaware and my activities there are starting to move into the background as I settle into the routine of travel--keeping my bags close, being conscious of where my stuff is. I enjoy this deliberate way of keeping track; it seems real and in the present. It is contrary to my normal distractions.

Getting outside of ourselves and being present in the moment is the gift of being, which is often disguised in the busyness of our everyday lives. It is a gift that emerges with each breath, available wherever we are – and ever present as I make my way to Turkey.

My friends arrive. It is hugs and kisses at Gate 8. Kennedy Airport has suddenly become very warm, literally and figuratively. We peel off layers of clothing and wait for our seat zone to be called.