Christmas Eve 2010

or "Oh, shit there's a bolt missing"

I was sitting in the Denver International Airport. I’d already been through a two and a half hour flight to 86 it out of Austin at 9am on Christmas Eve. I was beat. 50 hour work weeks, graduate school applications and a slew of happy holiday sweater/bike rides/rock hikes. I was tired. Dead. Tired. That morning I woke up at 6am to fix myself breakfast and make sure I had all the bbq, hot sauces and Mexican candy in my suitcase for Christmas.

I just wanted to smell the cold Washington air and feel the icy chill in my bones. I wanted it so badly.

My flight was late into Denver and I ran across the airport to catch my flight to Washington. My backpack bouncing as I ran across the “moving walkways” listening to Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros in a skirt, tights and heels. The song was Home. This important ironic foreshadowing for the  rest of the narrative. It probably looked (and was) incredibly comedic. I arrived at the the gate just as they announced my name over the loudspeaker.

I get in the plane and sit down. I give up my window seat so the woman with the fat baby can sit next to her husband. I am now significantly squished in between a woman from Wyoming in Carhart’s reading Nora Roberts and an incredibly, oversized man, about the age of 45. He is spilling onto my seat and I am literally so squished I can't really move. He is breathing heavily and watching Fantasia on a mini-dvd player. I can smell his breathing. I just pray this flight doesn’t take very long and pull out a copy of “Vogue” that was given to me by a sorority-esque woman who was sitting next to me on the previous flight.

The man starts snorting. As if his breath wasn’t bad enough, he now has a sound! His strange, irregular breathing was then interrupted by an announcement. There was a bolt missing from the emergency seat and we were permanently stuck in Denver until it was a)fixed or b) we found another plane. Fuck the bolt, I want to go home and move about freely.

 I immediately get off the plane and begin wandering around the Denver Airport. I swindle a husband and wife into treating me to a whiskey sour. I sip it and make casual conversation with a couple from Minnesota before heading back to my plane.

Three and a half hours later (10 hours from when I left my apartment in TX) the plane is ready to fly. That bolt must have been incredibly important.
The flight is normal and I arrive in Washington, late, but in one piece.

The breath in the cold air and feel the icy chill in my bones.

There is no time to waste because I have to go to Episcopal Mass, one of the only traditions my family has, which is ironic because we are not religious. In the least. Immediately following my flight, I get in the car, drive into town and attend mass. I see my grandparents, I hug them quietly in the pew and sit. The bishop gives a sermon relating Charlie Brown to Jesus and Truth. We drink the wine and eat the bread. The mass is always longer than I remember. But, at least I grew up attending a Cathedral, which is never boring because I am surrounded aesthetically beautiful, intense religious imagery.

I also have a grandfather who was raised a Catholic in New York City during the depression. He is now hard of hearing and carries some kind of resentment for Christianity. In the silences, he said the following.

Dean: “Please feel free to fill out information cards at the end of your pew if you would like to get in contact with our church.”

My grandfather: “I wont’ feel out one of those. They just want my money”
And, the best, said during the sacrament,
My grandfather: “I don’t want to drink their wine. It’s crap.”

And, it was a Merry Christmas indeed.