margagogo

I have a blog block. I haven’t written a post in a week.

I’m mentally heavy and struggling to step over weighty thoughts.

First:  Why do restaurants in Chicago O’Hare, one of the worlds busiest airports, start closing at 9PM when the airport is still mobbed with people?

Second:  Why when you need it most, like when sitting in O’Hare for the second layover in a day, is it impossible to get a good margarita?

These questions are my mental warm up since they’re easy. The answer to the first question is I don’t know but I can send some targeted tweets or plan for my next late night O’Hare visit by carrying several flasks, in a clear zip-loc, all under 3 ounces. The answer to my second question is super simple:  See the first question.

I’m feeling limber now so here I go with the tougher stuff.

When you’re balancing on a razor’s edge, what is the thing that determines if you’re cut free or just cut? When is youthful bravado the stuff of legends that you retell years later with friends, topping each other and upping the risk as you share the time you jumped off a cliff or fell out of a tree or drove drunk or any number of low-judgement high-jinx sort of things. Living to tell this stuff  give us bragging rights because we own the moment. For a second, we controlled fate. But what’s funny on reflection and adrenaline pumping in the moment it works, is maddening and saddening and heart breaking when it doesn’t. A second of poor judgement can prove how little control we have. And it makes we wonder what separates the lucky from the not.

I traveled this week to attend services for a friend’s son who died in a terrible accident.  The tragedy and my friend’s pain leave me feeling helpless, curious for answers and eager to take back control.

Which I guess puts me back to handling the easy questions like where to get a great margarita.

So thank you for letting me share. I’m off to do field research in Brooklyn and toast my friend and her dear son and wish for everyone the chance to reflect on that one time ….