My thoughts on the matter echo that of a swashbuckling fictional protagonist you've probably all heard of.
So I'll try to stick with the guideline and keep this post as un-confusing as possible, even if I do throw in several subjects.
However, that is not my intent. Nor is my intent for this blog to be the equivalent of a public diary, so I'm not going to give you a minute to minute report of what I did, who I saw, where I went, whatever. Pictures are worth a thousand words anyway, here's a few:
As much as I loved my visit and adore the people I saw (both those you see pictured, those whose pictures weren't included, and those I forgot to pull my phone on), my thoughts keep coming back to our experience coming home,
We (mom and I) had been congratulating ourselves on our traveling savvy all week. We'd obtained the best deal for flights, lodgings, rental car, the works. Of course, cheap usually comes with an additional non-monetary price. In the case of our lodgings, it was the price of our comfort zones: two women staying in the basement of a stranger with questionable bathroom cleaning skills. With our flight, it was the unearthly hour at which we were constrained to travel,
Having gone to bed two hours prior, we arose so early in the morning it was more accurately still night. In that bleary half asleep world of dimmed lights and disconnected thoughts, we dressed, ate reheated Korean dinner and two day old chocolate chip muffins, gathered our things, drove to the airport and returned our car.
Then began our adventures.
The tram from the terminal we were in to the one in which we were supposed to be was half an hour late. Buxom airport-Verizon employees waiting with us bemoaned their lateness to their shifts, while we and other flyers shifted uneasily under the weight of backpacks and looming departures.
When at last the tram delivered us safely a five minute ride away, we found our security check in, complete with two lines of over two hundred people each. Baffled, sleep starved, we crowded in with the others, whispering, anxiety growing, comparing flight times with our neighbors, and fingering our tickets. There wasn't a crowd in Salt Lake when we left it at a similarly unholy hour. I apparently missed the memo that Minnesotan travelers are nocturnal and prefer to congregate in great masses, like bats, in large open spaces like airports as dawn approaches.
Another forty five minutes to the front of the line. A security person gestured us forward. Mom presented her ticket. Our flight had been boarding for half an hour now. We were down to fifteen minutes to departure. After grimly studying her ID and ticket, the man behind the desk swiped the ticket, there was a beep, a green light, and she was through. My turn. Grim examination, swipe, beep, red light, problem.
Panic.
The details become fuzzy in my memory after that. I remember feeling mortified at how much like a whimper my voice sounded as I cried out in dismay. The guard explained gruffly that we'd have to reprint my ticket. My ticket, which was printed at the same time and place as my mother's. My ticket, which was, to untrained eyes such as mine, now blinking away the last cobwebs of exhaustion as adrenaline set in, in all ways besides my name and seat number identical to hers.
I remember striding purposefully to the opposite end of the gym-sized room, being told to wait by a bored bilingual airline staff member assisting a man rattling off Spanish. Finally crying out in desperation, "my flight's about to leave and my ticket won't work, please do something!" A new ticket. Priority line to the front of the crowd of nocturnal Minnesotans. Then boots on, boots off. Boots on again. Running, out of breath past dozens of gates, sympathetic faces, tired eyes. Then panting in another line in front of our gate, where another bored airline staff member with an official jacket a size too small and rosy cheeks informed me -- with seven minutes til departure, the plane still parked just on the other side of that window -- that we'd missed the flight. Doors close at ten minutes to departure.
Exhausted, resigned, we stood and waited as we were issued more tickets, a new gate, a different layover, a later flight. We walked back the way we'd come and further, found the fresh gate -- its waiting area empty but for a man sleeping on a bench, a couple of airport employees chatting too cheerily behind their desk, a discarded paper McDonalds bag on a table -- and collapsed onto seats.
Intermission
Another Cardinal Rule of Blogging:
Don't make your posts too long or no one will read them.
I write to whatever length pleases me. You have no obligation to read my writing. I write for myself.
II.
You're probably wondering about the title, "Of Lemons and Travel, Talents and Time." The only thing in it that I've mentioned so far is travel. "Where's the rest of it?" you're likely asking.
Don't worry, I'm getting there.
There's a great saying, one I've grown up with, one you're probably familiar with: "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." (Ding! There's the lemons bit.)
I've never pondered on this saying very much prior to this week, but my fairly literal understanding of it has always been that just because life hands you something sour doesn't mean you have to take it as is. You can modify it to something more palatable. This is a life philosophy that my mom passed on to me by example, calling the frequent wrong turns, backtracking and recalculating GPS's we've experienced together "adventures," where one might have called them "being lost." Changing the name (and therefore, often, my attitude) about an unfortunate happenstance has always made it seem easier to bear, made it lemonade, for me.
But on Thursday morning, as I jogged down a hill in wet socks, I had some time to ponder about the nature of lemonade. (Not a sentence you hear everyday. Not a sentence I thought I'd ever write, either.)
My vanity had inspired me to wear a pair of ankle-bootie heels with my outfit (I should probably add here that I have returned to school at BYU-I; there would be no point in wearing heels during the week back home -- heck, I didn't even wear makeup or real pants half the week at home -- as I did very little that involved leaving the couch, let alone the house). My first class was on the far side of campus, and it had been raining on and off all morning. All combined, these factors made the idea of walking to class less than favorable. I thought to myself, this once, I will be lazy and drive.
Bad idea.
It turns out, parking your car anywhere on or near campus is impossible without a permit. This didn't stop me from wasting ten of my fifteen minutes of pre-class cushion looking for a place to stash my trusty little Malibu. With two minutes left til class started, I pulled into the parking lot of the Rexburg temple. Just as far a walk from my class as my apartment would have been, but from the opposite direction.
At first, I tried to jog, my heels tapping out a nervous staccato on the damp pavement, but soon common sense returned along with visions of my nonsensically clad feet flying out from under me at the first patch of slime the rain was sure to have engendered. I slipped out of my short gray boots and, in my plaid socks, returned to speed.
The world had conspired to make me late to something yet again. Second time in a week. I was dodging lemons, reassuring myself internally that this would make a fun story later. Just another adventure.
As I'd sat in the quiet of predawn in the airport in Minnesota, I'd had the thought that I should probably use the next few hours before our new flight to sleep, to read the book I'd borrowed from my home teacher and brought with me, to write a blog post, something. Instead I had continued to sit, blinking tiredly, as the room filled up with small families, older couples, men in hoodies and women in boots, and the time slipped away. Finally, stirring out of my stupor, I noticed an incredible sunrise and it occurred to me that I'd been given a few extra hours in my beloved Minnesota. Hardly something to complain about.
I snapped a picture, shared it and congratulated myself on my lemonade. I'd bested those lemons. I'd kept my temper in check. I'd found the silver (or rather pink and orange) lining in the storm clouds.
Back at school, as I slid into my seat, eight minutes late, feet chilled and shoes still in hand, I considered my lemonade-making expertise. Funny adventure. Nice sunrise. My optimism in both situations, while laudable, wasn't much of an improvement. Sure, my lemonade was palatable, but could I have made better lemonade?
This brings me to the talents. As in the Parable of the Talents. (Stick with me here, this is the exploratory bit of this blog post. And if we get lost... well, it'll be an adventure.)
In the Parable of the Talents, a stern and imposing man of great wealth leaves a number of talents -- something that the LDS "Guide to the Scriptures" describes as "an ancient measure of weight or sum of money that was of
great worth" (emphasis added)-- with his servants, along with unspoken expectations for what they will do with his money.
One servant, having been given this positively terrifying responsibility (let me remind you, when he fails, his Lord commands that he be cast into outer darkness, to weep and wail and gnash his teeth -- yipes), with this enormous sum of money surely gathering sweat in his hand, decides to keep it safe rather than risk losing it. He maintains the status quo. He does not allow the situation to become worse than it is by becoming responsible for losing his master's funds. But neither does he really improve the situation.
In the airport, I had the thought that I should sleep. I had the idea that I should finish my home teacher's book. I had the inkling that this airplane business might make a good blog post, and I should write it.
Did I do any of that?
Nope.
I maintained the status quo. I did not allow the experience to change my attitude for the worse, I remained positive, I took a picture. Did I actually improve the situation by using it to my or anyone's benefit? No.
Am I suggesting that I will be held accountable for my use of every second given me? Well, actually, yeah, I guess I am.
Like the talents in the Parable, time, especially time when things are going poorly, is a terrifying responsibility. Elder Richard L. Evans, narrating the film
Man's Search for Happiness, said,
“Life offers you two precious gifts—one is time, the other freedom of choice, the freedom to buy with your time what you will. You are free to exchange your allotment of time for thrills. You may trade it for base desires. You may invest it in greed. …
“Yours is the freedom to choose. But these are no bargains, for in them you find no lasting satisfaction.
“Every day, every hour, every minute of your span of mortal years must sometime be accounted for."
If you are at all like me, when you first read that last line your immediate thought was, "Crap. What about the time I've spent on naps/video games/shopping/pretty much anything besides reading scriptures, praying, service, etc." But no worries. Repentance and the Atonement are definitely real, beautiful things and cover sins of omission as well as those of commission. Which is good, because I don't think I've ever spent a single day using every moment perfectly. The closest I came was on my mission, and I thank God for the incredible trainer who showed me the importance of every last second there.
Not that spending time doing things that are not gospel-centric is sinful. The developments of our characters, our talents, is important. Relaxation is important. Having fun and building relationships are important. And sometimes we
need some time to sit unproductively in an airport to process a frankly traumatizing experience. There is a "time to weep, a time to laugh; a time to mourn. a time to dance" as it says in Ecclesiastes 3:4. God has not given us a step by step recipe that tells us how to use our time perfectly (and anyway, even if He had, we're human and mistake prone and we would be incapable of following it perfectly -- again, the Atonement is so, so necessary). That's one reason why it is so essential to have the guidance of the Spirit with us at all times. To know on what we should spend our time, and how we can make our lemonade as good as we possibly can under the circumstances.
I suppose that's the real reason I'm sitting here, a week later, unsure of my use of time at five in the morning in a practically-abandoned waiting area in an airport over a thousand miles away. Were those thoughts about how I should use that time in the airport actually promptings? Or just a resurgence of my missionary waste-not-one-moment mindset? Or my brain attempting to create a sense of normalcy in a jarringly unfamiliar and uncomfortable situation?
I don't know. And it bugs me. Can I change what I did by worrying about it? No. Can I learn from it by thinking about it? Yes, and I have. (I hope.)
Returning to talents and lemons. Life gives us lemons sometimes. Things go wrong. Trams are late. Your ticket doesn't scan. The parking is all permit parking. These moments, like talents, are a terrifying responsibility of enormous potential. What we do with them is up to us. Do we make lemonade? Do we follow the Spirit to make it as good as it could be?
Because eventually, you're on that rescheduled flight, you're sitting in class with wet socks, those moments have passed, the lemons have stopped flying, and you are responsible for what you did with them.
So how about you? When is the last time you made some excellent lemonade (literal or figurative)? Did this post make sense to you? Am I the only one who thought the Parable of the Talents could apply to our time and choices under pressure? Tell me in the comments!
*Thank you to Sarah, my bestie writer-friend, for proof reading this post and giving excellent commentary and advice.
