LE JOURNAL: A VERY ROCKY BEGINNING

 

A series of essays….

AN AMAZING PLACE TO STAY IN NORTHERN DEVON -
THE BONNICOTT HOTEL IN LYNMOUTH, U.K.

….as seen through my eyes!

By: Jacqueline E Hughes

I will assure you, nobody likes being teased about whether or not their flight will take off, especially when it is at the very beginning of a well-planned, milestone marked, and highly promising trip (adventure). And, for certain, no one would choose spending the first night of this trip sleeping (basically sitting upright all night) in an uncomfortable chair at Gate 19, American Airlines, O’Hare Airport, Chicago, Illinois. Oh, yes…we did just that!

We were to take-off for London Heathrow from Chicago at 9:25 PM and, around an hour before boarding (with no plane in sight at the gate) we were told the flight was delayed by a half an hour. Okay, stuff happens. We generously conceded. Still no plane to be seen. Nobody was offering our rather large group of passengers any sort of explanation or even looking our way. Instead, five to six gate agents were entertaining one another with stories and bouts of laughter and disjointed camaraderie. What was that all about, anyway?

Each half an hour brought yet another posted delay until each delay turned into one hour increments. By now, families with young children had gone far beyond bedtimes and general comforting by relatives on all levels. Again, may I point out that even though many of us may have inconveniently interrupted the frolicking agents to inquire about our late flight, most of us learned of our dilemma by reading the boards that pointed out each and every delay or by checking our own devices on the American Airlines Website to gain any updates or information.

Finally, shortly after midnight, a large, dazzlingly white Boeing 787 emblazoned with American Airline symbols was positioned at our gate. May I say that loud cheers emanated from the weary crowd as children were awakened and belongings gathered. An agent, finally, came on the intercom to explain that we would be boarding in around twenty minutes. She would let us know for sure as time passed. The entire scenario still felt a bit questionable and surreal to us as we watched luggage, as well as commercial cargo, being sucked into the belly of this huge airliner. 

The time arrived and we were being guided down the jet bridge, at last! Stowing our carry on luggage above us and personal items below, it was such an amazing feeling to be snuggling into our seats and buckling up for the long flight to Heathrow. All smiles were genuine and long, long overdue. Life always has its small setbacks and this was just another one that would be gladly forgotten once we reached our destination. Dan had already contacted the car rental company at Heathrow and The Bonnicott Hotel in Lynmouth, North Devon, to note our late departure from Chicago. All bases were covered.

Then the captain came on the intercom…. 

“Folks, the plane has been having some mechanical difficulties and in order to work them out, I must ask that everyone disembark from the aircraft and take all of your personal items along with you.”

Gut punch. How much can your system take before breaking down completely? You never saw so many sad and angry people dragging themselves back through the same jet bridge they’d recently been thrilled to maneuver going in the opposite direction. My instincts had been correct, unfortunately. The negativity remained swirling around all of us like a dark cloud on a stormy night with no relief in sight. And, the inevitable rain was soon to become our own monsoon mixed with the fury of high winds and a genuine dislike of a questionable airline that many travelers have personally avoided at all costs. 

I’m no Sherlock Holmes or anything, but when something smells fishy that’s because something is fishy and even though we may not have had all the details leading up to this smelly predicament, the aroma may be all we needed to help us make changes or improvements.

Now our flight was delayed until 4:00 AM. At least that’s what the board was telling us considering not a living soul spoke another word to us as we diligently attempted to be calm and follow along with what information we could glean.

Mind you—they had us board a plane and then took us off that plane making us feel like lambs going to slaughter; degrading us without a reasonable explanation before pulling the plane away from Gate 19, never to be seen again.

Around the time Dan and I reasoned that our first full day in England was doomed, lost, and behind us, Dan took off in an attempt to secure another flight out of Chicago. We’d been emailed that another American flight would be taking off at 10:30 AM and arriving around 11:30 PM London time. The few seats left on this flight were gobbled up faster than Thanksgiving dinner and my stomach felt like it, too. Did I mention that our original flight had been officially cancelled via email around six o’clock? And, in all that time we heard only two voices over the intercom: one gate agent and the (supposed) captain of the ‘ghost flight’ on a huge 787 airliner that had disappeared from our gate soon after we disembarked.

We were left in the dark as we made our way over to the International Flight Terminal where our new departure was scheduled for 4:50 PM on British Airways, an affiliate of American. Dan’s hustle got us headed in the right direction, finally. 

With one lost day behind us, we hoped that our spirit would keep us afloat for the rest of the trip and, for the most part, it did. Our time in Devon and Cornwall had been diminished by one full day so, we sat on this flight trying to rearrange our initial itinerary and counting our losses as in one, pre-paid hotel night at the Bonnicott Hotel, situated high up on a hilltop with a clear view of the Bristol Channel and Wales on the opposite shoreline.

In all our years of traveling and taking many different air carriers in order to reach our destination, chalk this one up as the worst experience we’d ever had. But, doesn’t this fit right in with our changing times, after all? Our world is different; the process of making people (customers) aware of what is going on at any given time and feel more comfortable if not knowledgeable, is gone, for now. Keeping silent is much easier than being honest and transparent.

Here’s hoping that a compromise will be reached within all facets of life and that we will relearn that kindness is the key word to making everything better and more tolerable no matter what hardships may arise in our lifetime. In the meantime, as the Brits always say, the best way to get through anything seems to be to Keep Calm and Carry On. For the most part, we did. 

After landing in England, Dan and I learned about the computer hacking incident of the control operators at Heathrow and pieced things together. We became even angrier that flights like ours were used as sacrificial lambs and the passengers kept in the dark about the truth and played with for hours before they cancelled our flights! How many others lost an entire day of their vacations, let alone the money and time involved, before learning the reason behind it all? Email conversations with American Airlines are ongoing at this time. I will keep you posted.

MOVING ON…..2013-2023

Copyright © 2023 by Jacqueline E Hughes

All rights reserved

AGE IS ONLY A THREE LETTER WORD

 

A series of essays….

WEDDING DAY 1973

BEGINNING YET ANOTHER CHAPTER

….as seen through my eyes!

By: Jacqueline E Hughes

As I sit here on the threshold of resuming international travel — after our last retirement visit to Scotland and Ireland five years before, as well as several years of coping with a pandemic (which still haunts all of us to this day!), I find myself totally exhausted. Surprisingly, not so much physically, rather mentally with all of life’s imbalances thrown willy-nilly about the place; a whirlwind of happenings resembling fallen leaves swirling out of control on a windy autumn’s day.

Normally I don’t tend to dwell on the negatives in life (well, excluding drumpf, of course). Reading a good book, taking walks in the woods and enjoying the nature that surrounds me, and being in the company of my grandchildren can be enough to make life sweet and simple. I try to avoid the things that used to stress me before and eliminate the cause of mental and emotional strain. Always easier said than done. We humans acquire a lot of baggage as we age…

In an attempt to ‘bend the mind’ into believing that age is only a three letter word, nothing to worry about, it can’t harm me, I see how much longer it takes to accomplish tasks compared to years ago. How my left knee requires an occasional Advil or two along with a healthy spray of Biofreeze in order to function with less pain. Watching my thinning hair become more and more lackluster. Understanding that the word crêpe can describe more than a deliciously filled French pancake.

Yes, getting older comes with its physical changes and challenges. However, it’s the mental attitude toward life’s inevitable ebb & flow of reality as we age that has me thinking about the structure of my life, lately.

The sad and untimely passing of my sister-in-law’s sister, Mary, recently, at the very young age of sixty-two, has re-opened a wound that I’ve been living with for many years when my own Mother passed, quite unexpectedly, at sixty-two years of age. Leaving young grandchildren to wonder why grandma wasn’t there to play and bake cookies with them, snuggle with them when they were tired, and warm their hearts with her pure joy and love of life, family, and friends.

It had taken at least a decade after her passing to realize that I couldn’t just call Mom whenever I had questions about anything and knowing that she would have the answer to each one. Your Mother can be the lifeline to your past, your ancestry connection, your fill-in-the-blank go-to-person, your support system, and an integral part of making your life function normally while remaining true to yourself. Since we lived an hour and a half from one another, I miss our frequent and enjoyable phone conversations, as well as the ability to ask her about something as simple as a favorite Ukrainian recipe. Love.

Going back to the imbalances in my life of late… Do you know how you can wake-up and feel that something is off, not following a normal pattern? Or, the milk tastes a little off even though the expiration date is still more than a week away? It all began back on the the Fourth of July after falling backwards down two cement steps in my daughters’s mud room…

…right on my tailbone, scraping my left elbow, and banging the back of my head on the wall before coming to a twisted mass, while staring somberly at the mud room floor.  Before moving, I quickly assessed the damage and reasoned that I could move. I would get up if my brain could be convinced to allow me to do so. 

BREE AND OREO SHARING A TOY IN RELATIVE PEACE AND QUIET…

Naturally, I was all alone. Well, if you consider having Oreo, their dog, inside the house and our dog, Bree, constrained in the back seat of my car parked in the driveway as reputable help in my situation, I was pretty much on my own. Everyone had gone up north to celebrate the holiday and I opted to doggy sit instead. It was time to move. I had two beautiful creatures to take care of.

With the help of a warm, invisible hug and the strong arm of my guardian angel, I stood upright, a bit sore, with the realization that my tailbone would haunt me with pain for a very long time.

Last week I banged my shin on a brick fireplace hearth at a friend’s house that coincided with an existing gash of a few days before that hadn’t had time to heal. I spent the following hour or so feeling the warmth of blood trickle down my leg before being absorbed by my cotton pant leg all while discussing the amazing book written by TJ Klune entitled The House in the Cerulean Sea! What an interesting bookclub gathering that was!

For some reason, preparing to pack our luggage for our upcoming trip to Wales and parts of England has me more stressed than usual. Five years is a long time between international travel and things do and have changed in that amount of time. Perhaps it’s knowing that I should wear a mask during the long flight that has me concerned. The mask will be worn, but I won’t be, physically, happy about it. It is enough to comprehend that COVID-19, or a strain thereof, will be around for as long as we humans exist and, all of us must come to terms with this fact.   

I must look to the bright side and be thankful for the opportunity to travel once again; a passion of mine for so many years. I will forego worrying about the small stuff (By the way, my tailbone has healed nicely), and make the time to set the world straight again; feel happy with my surroundings and make the most out of the life I’ve been blessed with.

Dan and I, while celebrating fifty years of marriage together, will enjoy twelve days of constant movement, being a part of life’s flow, walking down quiet country lanes with astounding views, making new friends, participating in the living history surrounding us, and understanding, with joy in or hearts, how fortunate we both are. That tiny, three letter word (age) will be but a speck lodged way back in my mind. Wow! This is going to be an amazing experience! I can hardly wait to come back to write and tell you all about it.

MOVING ON….2013 TO 2023

Copyright © 2023 by Jacqueline E Hughes

All rights reserved

PURPOSEFULNESS & SELF-ALIGNMENT HELP US DISCOVER SIMPLICITY

 

A series of essays….

THE LIGHT YOU BRING INTO THIS WORLD IS
BEAUTIFUL, IRREPLACEABLE, AND NEEDED.    —- TWLOHA

\

….as seen through my eyes!

By: Jacqueline E Hughes

I know… I know… This is a mouthful of words. Actually, the term self-alignment has been part of our spiritual vernacular for many years and can be identified with mindfulness, or the state of living in the moment. Living a purposeful life, recognizing our goals and the path to achieve them, brings us full circle. For me, this is where simplicity and living a simple life comes in and helps to round out the picture…keeping us humble and in control. 

Here’s to making Self-Alignment, Purposefulness, and Mindfulness the keys to unlocking our best life possible.

Purposefulness & Self Alignment

My father was proud of the vehicles he chose to drive and call his own. He would trade-in his Chevrolets every two years throughout the 1950’s even though it always looked as though they just rolled off the new car lot with a spit shine and a snappy tune playing on the radio. Cars were definitely his thing; we all knew this. No eating in the car unless I say so. Keep your feet down and where they belong. Don’t touch or smudge the windows. And yet, it didn’t bother us all that much because we knew exactly what was expected of us, I suppose.

He had a mental schedule designed to keep his car maintained and running well and rarely did his schedule deviate, for as long as I can remember: oil change, check all fluids, tune-up, rotate tires that was followed by a wheel alignment which consisted of adjusting the angle of the tires to the car manufacturer specifications. The purpose was to reduce tire wear and to ensure that vehicle travel was straight and true.

Truth be told, my older brother and I were proud to sit in dad’s cars. His vehicle was the shiny penny among all of the others on the road. Taking pride in something can be a wonderful thing and should pay-off in the end. It can show that you have a purpose and a reason to care about something and/or someone and help them to provide such profound joy in life. I hope dad found great joy in life by simply loving his vehicles…

So, I’m thinking that if objects require proper alignment in order to run straight and true, how would this concept apply to us and our own mental and emotional status? Are we ‘off the rails,’ so to speak, when our lives are ‘out of alignment’ and the world is slamming curve balls at us at 90 mph? 

While looking up the word alignment in reference to cars, I was reintroduced to the prospect of becoming self-aligned, something I had dabbled in many years ago when a self-help group of friends met weekly to discover how to meditate, balance our chakras and lifestyles, and become more aware of the world around us. I was encouraged back then; I am even more encouraged about self-alignment, today.

In researching the term self-alignment, I’ve become more aware of the thoughtfulness and encouragement behind its basic concept. I understand how we could create a better world when each person is in alignment with their genuineness or authenticity, knows their purpose, and is able to inspire and create their dreams. It is imperative that we acquire the awareness, wisdom, and will to solve the problems we face so that we can build a better life, a better world. If we’re not aware of these problems in the first place, how can we change or begin to solve them?

We are all creatures of habit and as time goes by we cling to what makes us feel most comfortable. When life throws us curve balls, will we be prepared and able to cope with them long enough to allow hope to settle in and move us forward? Whether it’s our children leaving the nest to pursue their own future, a spouse passing and leaving a silence behind that is deafening, or experiencing great loss due to an unexpected disaster, how we react to a problem will make all the difference when moving forward.

Self-alignment can help prepare us for the unexpected because we are mindful of our own strengths and are better prepared to push fear aside when we need to the most. In turn, we become more aware of the world around us making it easier to help others in need while focusing on the true purpose of our own existence. 

If someone said that they could offer you a key that would open a door that may have been holding you back from achieving your full potential — would you take it? When you open the door, light pours in from all directions connecting you with greater energy, more clarity, and the awakening of unrealized talents and abilities. Have you felt you were being held back (unfulfilled) by not holding the key to self-alignment and purposefulness within your higher self in order to ensure that your travels through this life are straight and true? May the light you bring into this world fill you up with an abundance of joy and love!

Simplicity

If we’ve used our ‘key,’ wisely, to open the door, the detritus left behind by our past life will be scattered by the wind of enlightenment. Our potential will be unleashed. Fear will be diminished if not depleted and life will become less cluttered and living a simple life will abound, rounding out the picture…keeping us humble and in full control of whatever comes our way. Close your eyes and breathe in, deeply. Let your breath out, slowly, slowly.. Now, proceed.

A simple lifestyle can become the key to unlocking our best life possible.

In his own way, my dad was seeking a life filled with less clutter and brimming  with the pride and joy brought about by a job well done. Even his children learned quickly the parameters of his system and, ultimately, claimed for themselves the pride he felt in faithfully maintaining a prized possession. 

Life was fairly simple back then. I was happy to welcome the summer sunshine into my playtime hours and wash all of the day’s dust off afterward in my nightly Mr. Bubble bath. Helping my mother make simple sandwiches to be packed in a wicker basket makes me smile. Hopping into the car as dad headed into the countryside on a late Saturday morning to find a roadside picnic table for us to sit at and enjoy our sandwiches together was always a simple pleasure. Life was good and wholesome. 

Today, we can find joy in appreciating a simple life by casting away past tribulations and enjoying sitting in a colorful garden, a good book in hand, a cool drink in the other, and savoring the warmth of a sunny afternoon with gentle breezes caressing our faces. Discovering our blissful life is possible. Maintaining our path of self-alignment as we take on life’s responsibilities is more important now than ever before.

MOVING ON…..2013-2023

Copyright © 2023 by Jacqueline E Hughes

All rights reserved